If we were to divide the period for which we possess
authentic records of man's abode upon this oblate spheroid into ten
epochs--an epoch being a good high-sounding word which doesn't commit
one to any definite chronology in particular--then it is probable that
all known art, from the Egyptian onward, would fall into the tenth of
the epochs thus loosely demarcated, while my old French bas-relief
would fall into the first. To put the date quite succinctly, I should
say it was most likely about 244,000 years before the creation of Adam
according to Ussher.
The work of the old master is lightly incised on reindeer horn, and
represents two horses, of a very early and heavy type, following one
another, with heads stretched forward, as if sniffing the air
suspiciously in search of enemies. The horses would certainly excite
unfavourable comment at Newmarket. Their 'points' are undoubtedly coarse
and clumsy: their heads are big, thick, stupid, and ungainly; their
manes are bushy and ill-defined; their legs are distinctly feeble and
spindle-shaped; their tails more closely resemble the tail of the
domestic pig than that of the noble animal beloved with a love passing
the love of women by the English aristocracy. Nevertheless there is
little (if any) reason to doubt that my very old master did, on the
whole, accurately represent the ancestral steed of his own exceedingly
remote period. There were once horses even as is the horse of the
prehistoric Dordonian artist.
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