|
|
Boulder Place Directory 04
Page 03
The geological formation of the Andes in that particular region was remarkable, and more remarkable still was the British engineering triumph of constructing a railway from the sea to so high an elevation. In one or two places there were iron bridges of great height and ingenious construction. You felt a curious sensation as you flew over those bridges on the tiny car, and you saw between the rails the chasm underneath you; nor did you feel extraordinarily comfortable when, hundreds of feet down, down below, at the bottom of one chasm, you saw a railway engine which had leapt the rails and lay upside down in the middle of a foaming torrent.
Space would fail me if I now sought to carry you off to the cave of Altamira, near Santander, in the north-west of Spain. Here you might see at its best a still later style of rock-painting, which deserts mere black and white for colour-shading of the most free description. Indeed, it is almost too free, in my judgment; for, though the control of the artist over his rude material is complete, he is inclined to turn his back on real life, forcing the animal forms into attitudes more striking than natural, and endowing their faces sometimes, as it seems to me, with almost human expressions. Whatever may be thought of the likelihood of these beasts being portrayed to look like men, certain it is that in the painted caves of this period the men almost invariably have animal heads, as if they were mythological beings, half animal and half human; or else--as perhaps is more probable--masked dancers. At one place, however--namely, in the rock shelter of Cogul near Lerida, on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees, we have a picture of a group of women dancers who are not masked, but attired in the style of the hour. They wear high hats or chignons, tight waists, and bell-shaped skirts. Really, considering that we thus have a contemporary fashion-plate, so to say, whilst there are likewise the numerous stencilled hands elsewhere on view, and even, as I have seen with my own eyes at Niaux in the sandy floor, hardened over with stalagmite, the actual print of a foot, we are brought very near to our palaeolithic forerunners; though indefinite ages part them from us if we reckon by sheer time.
There is good testimony that various species of Gibbon readily take to the erect posture. Mr. George Bennett, a very excellent observer, in describing the habits of a male _Hylobates syndactylus_ which remained for some time in his possession, says: "He invariably walks in the erect posture when on a level surface; and then the arms either hang down, enabling him to assist himself with his knuckles; or, what is more usual, he keeps his arms uplifted in nearly an erect position, with the hands pendent ready to seize a rope, and climb up on the approach of danger or on the obtrusion of strangers. He walks rather quick in the erect posture, but with a waddling gait, and is soon run down if, while pursued, he has no opportunity of escaping by climbing.... When he walks in the erect posture, he turns the leg and foot outward, which occasions him to have a waddling gait and to seem bow-legged."
|
