Although all the White Horses, except one, are in Wiltshire, that one exception is the great sire and prototype of them all, which is at Uffington, just 2½ miles outside the Wiltshire Boundary and within that of Berkshire. * * * The one mediæval document in which the White Horse is mentioned is a cartulary of the Abbey of Abingdon, which must have been written either in the reign of Henry II or soon after, and which runs as follows: “It was then customary amongst the English that any monks who wished might receive money or landed estates and both use and devolve them according to their pleasure. Hence two monks of the monastery at Abingdon, named Leofric and Godric Cild, appear to have obtained by inheritance manors situated upon the banks of the Thames; one of them, Godric, becoming possessed of Spersholt, near the place commonly known as the White Horse Hill, and the other that of Whitchurch, during the time that Aldhelm was abbot of this place.”

This Aldhelm appears to have been abbot from 1072 to 1084, and from the terms in which the White Horse Hill is mentioned the name was evidently an old one at that time.

Now it was only two hundred years before this time, viz, in 871, that a very famous victory had been gained by King Alfred over the Danes close to this very spot. “Four days after the battle of Reading,” says Asser, “King Æthelred, and Alfred, his brother, fought against the whole army of the pagans at Ashdown. * * * And the flower of the pagan youths were there slain, so that neither before nor since was ever such destruction known since the Saxons first gained Britain by their arms.” And it was in memory of this victory that, we are informed by local tradition, Alfred caused his men, the day after the battle, to cut out the White Horse, the standard of Hengist, on the hillside just under the castle. The name Hengist, or Hengst, itself means Stone Horse in the ancient language of the Saxons, and Bishop Nicholson, in his “English Atlas,” goes so far as to suppose the names of Hengist and Horsa to have been not proper at all, but simply emblematical.

The Uffington horse measures 355 feet from the nose to the tail and 120 feet from the ear to the hoof. It faces to sinister, as do also those depicted upon all British coins. The slope of the portion of the hill upon which it is cut is 39°, but the declivity is very considerably greater beneath the figures. The exposure is southwest.

This is traditionally reported to have been cut in 1461, in memory of the exploits of Richard, Earl of Warwick, who was for many years one of the most prominent figures in the Wars of the Roses. The earl had in the early part of the year found himself, with a force of forty thousand men, opposed to Queen Margaret, with sixty thousand, at a place called Towton, near Tadcaster. Overborne by numbers, the battle was going against him, when, dismounting from his horse, he plunged his sword up to the hilt in the animal’s side, crying aloud that he would henceforth fight shoulder to shoulder with his men. Thereupon the soldiers, animated by their leader’s example, rushed forward with such impetuosity that the enemy gave way and flew precipitately. No less than twenty-eight thousand Lancastrians are said to have fallen in this battle and in the pursuit which followed, for the commands of Prince Edward were to give no quarter. It was to this victory that the latter owed his elevation to the throne, which took place immediately afterwards.

The Red Horse used to be scoured every year, upon Palm Sunday, at the expense of certain neighboring landowners who held their land by that tenure, and the scouring is said to have been as largely attended and to have been the occasion of as great festivity as that of the older horse in the adjoining county of Berks. The figure is about 54 feet in extreme length by about 31 in extreme height.

This is a figure roughly representing a man, undraped, and with a club in his right hand; the height is 180 feet, and the outlines are marked out by a trench 2 feet wide and of about the same depth. It covers nearly an acre of ground. Hutchin imagines this figure to represent the Saxon god, Heil, and places its date as anterior to A. D. 600. * * * Britton, on the other hand, tells us that “vulgar tradition makes this figure commemorate the destruction of a giant who, having feasted on some sheep in Blackmoor and laid himself to sleep on this hill, was pinioned down like another Gulliver and killed by the enraged peasants, who immediately traced his dimensions for the information of posterity.” There were formerly discernible some markings between the legs of the figure rather above the level of the ankles, which the country folk took for the numerals 748, and imagined to indicate the date. We need, perhaps, scarcely remark that Arabic numerals were unknown in Europe until at least six centuries later than this period.

There are found in Sweden large pictures engraved on the rocks which are of great antiquity, long before the Roman period.

These are of different kinds and sizes, the most numerous being the drawings of ships or boats, canoe-shaped and alike at both ends (with figures of men and animals), and of fleets fighting against each other or making an attack upon the shore. The hero of the fight, or the champion, is generally depicted as much larger than the other combatants, who probably were of one people, though of different tribes, for their arms are similar and all seem without clothing, though in some cases they are represented as wearing a helmet or shield.

On some rocks are representations of cattle, horses, reindeer, turtles, ostriches, and camels, the latter showing that in earlier times these people were acquainted with more southern climes. The greatest number and the largest and most complicated in detail of the tracings occur, especially in the present Sweden, in Bohuslän, “the ancient Viken of the Sagas,” on the coast of the peninsula washed by the Cattegat. They are also found in Norway, especially in Smaalenene, a province contiguous to that of Bohuslän, but become more scarce in the north, though found on the Trondhjem fjord.

In Bohuslän the tracings are cut in the quartz, which is the geological formation of the coast. They are mostly upon slightly inclined rocks, which are generally 200 or 300 feet or more above the present level of the sea, and which have been polished by the action of the ice. The width of the lines in the same representation varies from 1 to 2 inches and even more, and their depth is often only a third or fourth of an inch, and at times so shallow as to be barely perceptible. Those tracings, which have for hundreds, perhaps for thousands, of years been laid bare to the ravages of the northern climate, are now most difficult to decipher, while those which have been protected by earth are as fresh as if they had been cut to-day. Many seem to have been cut near the middle or base of the hills, which were covered with vegetation, and were in the course of time concealed by the detritus from above.

This dolmen, situated in the commune of Épone, in a place called Le Bois de la Garenne, was constructed beneath the ground; it was concealed from view and it is to this circumstance, no doubt, that its preservation is due. Nothing indicates that it has been surmounted by a tumulus; in any case this tumulus had long since disappeared, and the ground was entirely leveled when the digging was commenced some years ago. * * *

The characters (Fig. 139) are carved in intaglio on the farthest stone of the entrance, on the left side. The whole of the inscription measures 1^m, 10 in height and 82 centimeters in width, and may be divided into two groups, an upper and a lower one.

The upper character represents a rectangular figure divided into three transverse sections; in the third section and almost in the center is a cupule.

The lower character is more complicated and more difficult to describe. The first, or left-hand portion, represents a stone hatchet with a shaft; there is no doubt as to this, in my mind, as the outlines are perfectly clear, the design of the hatchet being very distinct. This hatchet measures 0^m, 108 in length and 38^mm in width to the edge of the blade. These are precisely the most common dimensions of the hatchets of our country. As to the remainder of the character, I think an interpretation of it difficult and premature.

On the whole, the result of an examination of these inscriptions leaves the impression that the author did not seek to cover a stone with ornamentation, for these outlines have nothing whatever of the ornamental, but that he wished to represent to his people, by intelligible symbols, some particular idea.

It is hardly possible to give a description of the designs in the covered way of Gavr’ inis. They are various linear combinations, the lines being straight, curved, undulating, isolated, or parallel, ramified like a fern, segments of concentric circles, limited or not, and decorating certain compartments with close winding spirals, recalling vividly the figures produced by the lines on the skin in the hollow of the hand and on the tips of the fingers.

In the midst of accumulated and very oddly grouped lines, which no doubt are merely decorative, there are found signs which must have had a meaning, and some figures easy to determine.

The hatchet, the stone hatchet and no other, the large hatchet of Tumiac, of Mané-er-Hroèg, and of Mont Saint Michel, is represented in intaglio or in relief, real size. A single pillar of Gavr’ inis bears eighteen of them. Less numerous groups are seen on some other blocks of the same covered way.

On a little block placed under the ceiling in order to wedge up one of the covering slabs, is seen the image of a hatchet with handle, conformable to a type found in the marsh of Ehenside in Cumberland, England. On many other monuments the presence of the same figures of hatchets, with handles or without, has been observed. The most curious slab is certainly that of Mané-er-Hroèg. It had been broken, and its three pieces had been thrown in disorder before the threshold of the crypt. One of its faces, very well smoothed off, bears a cartouche in the form of a stirrup, filled with enigmatic signs and surrounded above and below by a dozen hatchets with handles, all engraved.

One other sign, the imprint of the naked foot, is to be noted, found only once on this slab. Two human footprints are traced on one of the pillars of the crypt of the Petit-Mont in Arzon. They are said to be divided off, by a slight relief, from the rest of the granite frame on which they are sculptured, and which contains other drawings. Similar figures, engraved on rock or on tombstones, are cited from abroad, in lands far apart. In Sweden, the prints of naked or sandaled feet are common among the rock sculptures of the age of bronze which represent the curious scenes of the life of the people of that period. It is proper to note that these Scandinavian and Morbihan sculptures are not synchronous; the idea of an immediate influence of one people on the other can not be entertained. One might, however, maintain the identity of origin.

The other inscriptions of Brittany are enigmatic in every respect. But they probably had a conventional value, a determined meaning. There is first of all a sort of complicated cartouche, plainly defined, having the appearance of a buckler or heraldic shield. Among the isolated signs it is proper to note a figure of the shape of the letter U with the ends spread wide apart and curved in opposite directions. It recalls, with some aid from the imagination, the character which on the Scandinavian rocks represents more plainly ships and barks.

The reproductions of the large wall pictures discovered in that cave displayed, in part, so excellent technique that the question arose how much of this excellence is to be attributed to the prehistoric artist, and how much to his modern copyist. Mr. Vilanova, who visited the cave soon after its discovery, and who regards the wall pictures as prehistoric, being about equal in age to the Danish Kjökken-möddings, states that the pictures given are pretty faithful imitations of the originals. The published drawings are all found on the ceiling of the first cave; on the walls of the subsequent caves are seen sketches of those pictures, which the artist afterwards completed. The outlines of all the drawings have been cut in the wall with coarse instruments, and nearly all the bone implements found in the cave show scratches, which render it probable that they were used for this purpose. The colors used consist merely of various kinds of ocher found in the province, without further preparation. Finally Mr. Vilanova reports that in the cave farthest back there was found, in his presence, an almost perfect specimen of Ursus spelæus.

The inscriptions of Fuencaliente are of great interest and importance. About one league east of the town, on a spur of the Sierra de Quintana, at the site of the Piedra Escritá, there is an almost inaccessible place, the home of wild beasts and mountain goats. Beyond the river de los Batanes and the river de las Piedras, looking toward sunset and toward the town, the artisans of a remote age cut skillfully and symmetrically with the point of the pickax into the flank of the rock and of the mountain, which is of fine flint, leaving a facade or frontispiece 6 yards in height and twice as wide, and excavating there two contiguous caves, which are wide at the mouth and end in a point, making two triangular niches polished on their four faces. On the two outer fronts to the left and right appear more than 60 symbols or hieroglyphs, written in a simple and rustic way with the index finger of a rude hand, and with a reddish bituminous pigment. The niches, about a yard and a half in height, 1 yard deep, and half a yard at the mouth, are covered by the exceedingly hard and immense rock of the mountain. There is formed, as it were, a vestibule or esplanade before the monument, and it is defended by a rampart made of the rocks torn from the niches, strengthened with juniper, oaks, and cork trees. The half-moon, the sun, an ax, a bow and arrows, an ear of corn, a heart, a tree, two human figures, and a head with a crown stand out among those signs, the foreshadowings of primitive writing.

The inscriptions are not in colors, as are those given in Dr. Von Haast’s paper, but are made by the repeated dots of a sharp pointed instrument. It is probable that if we knew how to read them they might convey important information, since the same signs occur in different combinations, just as the letters of our alphabet recur in different combinations to form words. Without the whole of these figures we can not say whether the same probability applies to them.

On the last military expedition made in the Sahara Gen. Colonieu made a careful restoration of the inscriptions on the rocks, whose existence was discovered at Tyout and Moghar. At Tyout these inscriptions are engraved on red or Vosgian sandstone, and at Moghar on a hard compact calcareous stone. At Moghar the designs are more complicated than those at Tyout. An attempt has been made to render ideas by more learned processes; to the simplicity of the line, the artlessness of the poses which are seen at Tyout, there are added at Moghar academic attitudes difficult to render, and which must be intended to represent some custom or ceremony in use among the peoples who then inhabited this country. The costume at Moghar is also more complicated. The ornaments of the head recall those of Indians, and the woman’s dress is composed of a waist and a short skirt fastened by a girdle with flowing ends. All this is very decent and elegant for the period. The infant at the side is swaddled. The large crouching figure is the face view of a man who seems to be bearing his wife on his shoulders. At the right of this group is a giraffe or large antelope. In the composition above may be distinguished a solitary individual in a crouching attitude, seen in front, the arms crossed in the attitude of prayer or astonishment. The animals which figure in the designs at Moghar are cattle and partridges. The little quadruped seated on its haunches may be a gerboise (kind of rat), very common in these parts.

In the inscriptions at Tyout we easily recognize the elephant, long since extinct in these regions, but neither horse nor camel is seen, probably not having been yet imported into the Sahara country.

These inscriptions, together with others found in the adjacent quarries, range over a period of between three and four thousand years, beginning with the early reigns of the ancient empire and ending with the Ptolemies and Cæsars. Some are mere autographs. Others run to a considerable length. Many are headed with figures of gods and worshippers. These, however, are for the most part mere graffiti, ill drawn and carelessly sculptured. The records they illustrate are chiefly votive. The passer-by adores the gods of the cataract, implores their protection, registers his name, and states the object of his journey. The votaries are of various ranks, periods, and nationalities; but the formula in most instances is pretty much the same. Now it is a citizen of Thebes performing the pilgrimage to Philæ, or a general at the head of his troops returning from a foray in Ethiopia, or a tributary prince doing homage to Rameses the Great and associating his suzerain with the divinities of the place.

The Hottentots and the Bantu peoples of South Africa produce no drawings, though the latter accomplish something in indifferent sculptures. The draftsmen and painters of South Africa are the Bushmen, who in this way, as well as by many other striking ethnic traits, testify to their independent ethnic position. The extraordinary multitude of figures of men and animals drawn by this people within its whole area, now greatly reduced, from the cape at the south to the lands and deserts north of the Orange river, and which they still draw at this day in gaudy colors, testify to an uncommonly firm hand, a keenly observing eye, and a very effective characterization. The Bushman artist mostly selects the surfaces of the countless rock bowlders, the walls of caves, or rock walls protected by overhanging crags, to serve as the canvas whereon to practice his art. He either painted his figures with colors or chiseled them with a hard sharp stone on the rock wall, so that they appear in intaglio. The number of these figures may be judged from the fact that Fritsch at Hopetown found “thousands” of them, often twenty or more on one block; Hubner, at “Gestoppte Fontein,” in Transvaal, saw two hundred to three hundred together, carved in a soft slate. The earth colors employed are red, ochre, white, black, mixed with fat or also with blood. What instrument (brush?) is employed in applying the colors has not yet been ascertained, since, so far as I know, no Bushman artist has yet been observed at his work. As regards the paintings themselves, various classes may be distinguished, but in all cases the subjects are representations of figures; ornaments and plants are excluded. First of all, there are fights and hunting scenes, in which white men (boers) play a part, demonstrating the modern origin of these paintings. Next there are representations of animals, both of domestic animals (cattle, dogs) and of game, especially the various antelope species, giraffes, ostriches, elephants, rhinoceroses, monkeys, etc. A special class consists of representations of obscene nature, and, by way of exception, there has been drawn in one instance a ship or a palm tree.

The Bushmen, who are regarded as the lowest type of Africans, in one thing excel all the other South African tribes whose acquaintance I made between the south coast and 10° south latitude. They draw heads of gazelles, elephants, and hippopotami astonishingly well. They sketch them in their caves and paint them with ochre or chisel them out in rocks with stone implements, and on the tops of mountains we may see representations of all the animals which have lived in those parts in former times. In many spots where hippopotami are now unknown I found beautiful sketches of these animals, and in some cases fights between other native races and Bushmen are represented.

As usual, the Bushmen are represented as dwarfs and painted in bright color as contrasted with the Kaffirs, who are painted large and of dark color. The scene is full of life, a true artistic conception, and in the details there are many important things to be noted. For this reason I add a sketch of it, with the figures numbered, in order to be able to send you some brief annotations.

I will premise that as far as the women are concerned, in the small figures, no mistaken notion should be entertained in regard to the anterior appendages which catch, or rather strike, the eye in some of them. There is question simply of the pudendal coverings of the Bushman women, consisting of a strip of skin, and flapping in the wind.

a seems to represent a woman in an advanced interesting condition, who in her headlong flight has lost even her mantle. She holds in her hand a mogope (disproportionate); that is to say, a gourd dipper, such as are found, I believe, among all the south African tribes.

b. This figure, besides the mogope which she holds in her left hand, carries away in her flight, steadying it on her head with her right hand, a nkho (sesuto), a baked earthenware vessel, in which drinks are kept, and of which the ethnographic museum now contains some specimens. This woman, too, has lost all her clothing except the pudendal covering, and she looks pregnant. The attitudes of flight, while maintaining equilibrium, I deem very fine.

c, f, g, h, l, m, and perhaps j. Women carrying their babies on their backs, as is the practice of the natives, in the so-called thari; that is, a sheepskin so prepared that they can fasten it to their bodies and hold it secure, even while bent to the ground or running.

l and m. Women with twins. It may be worthy of note that the painter has placed them last, hampered as they are with a double weight.

c. Apparently a woman who has fallen in her flight. Figures e and i represent men, who by their stature might be thought to be Bushmen, as also by their color, which, so far as I remember, is not the same as that of the men coming up after them, being rather similar to that of the women. In that case e would stoop to raise the woman c who has fallen, and i would point the way to the others. Otherwise, if there is question of Matebeles, which is rendered plausible by the fact that n (which evidently represents an enemy) is not larger in stature than those two, then e would stoop to snatch the baby of the fallen woman, and i would strive to catch up with the two women g and h, who flee before it.

j. I can not explain this unless as a diffusion of color, which has transformed into something unrecognizable the figure of the child carried by its mother, who has fallen, like b.

k seems to be a woman resigned to her fate, who touches her neck with the left hand, unless, indeed, the line which I take to be the arm is the sketch of the thari with the baby.

l. A woman who runs toward the looker-on.

m represents a woman who has sat down, perhaps in order to place her twins better in the thari, while behind her n arrives, preparing to spear her. With n the band of enemies begins plainly, o seeming to be the leader, who, standing still, gives the signal. But this figure must have been altered by the water, which by diluting the color of the body has made it appear as a garment.

p and q. These admirable portraits of impetuosity and menace are a pictorial translation of the saying “having long legs so as to run fast.”

r. A fine type of an attitude in the poise of running.

A site very little frequented, designated by the name of Los Letreros, appears to have been inhabited in very ancient times by one of the aboriginal tribes established on the Island of Fer, one of the Canary islands. At a distance of about three-quarters of a league from the coast all the land sloping and broken by volcanic mounds extends in undulations to the edge of the cliffs which flank the coast. It is on this desert site, called Los Letreros, that inscriptions are found engraved on an ancient flow of basaltic lava, with a smooth surface, over an extent of more than 400 meters. On all this surface, at various distances and without any relation to each other, but placed where the lava presents the smoothest spots, rendered shining and glassy by the light varnish left by the volcanic matter in cooling, are the various groups of characters.

When we examine closely these different signs or characters so deeply engraved [pecked] on the rock, doubtless by means of some hard stone (obsidian or basalt), the first thing observed is that several identical signs are reproduced several times in the same group. These are, first, round and oval characters, more or less perfect, sometimes simple and isolated, again agglomerated in one group. These characters so often reproduced are again seen in juxtaposition or united, sometimes to others which are similar, sometimes to different ones, and even inclosed in others similar to them; for example, a in Fig. 144.

Round or more or less oval characters reappear several times in b.

Others, which are not met with more than once or twice among the groups of signs, also present notable variations; examples in c.

Of these are formed composite groups d, which belong, however, to the system of round signs.

Other analogous but not identical signs appear to assume rather the ovoid form than the round, and seem to have been so traced as not to be confounded with the round symbols. Some of them resemble leaves or fruit.

Another system of simple characters is the straight line, which can be represented by a stroke of the pen, isolated or repeated as if in numeration, and sometimes accompanied by other signs.

Other peculiar signs shown in e, which are not repeated, figure in the different groups of characters which the author has reproduced.

We notice further, in f, a small number of signs which bear a certain analogy to each other, and several of which are accompanied by other and more simple characters.

Several others still more complicated are in eccentric shapes which it is attempted to present in g.

Including the common oval characters often repeated and those consisting of a simple stroke similar to the strokes made by school children, all the various engraved characters scarcely exceed 400.

Fig. 145 gives a view of a series of different groups of signs in the length of the whole lava flow. The copyist has expressed by dots those symbols which were confused, partly defaced by the weather, or destroyed by fissures in the rock.

These drawings, presented that they may be compared with those of Fer Island (Los Letreros), show some fifteen signs, some of which are repeated several times and others partly effaced by weather, or at least feebly traced. But what seems most remarkable is that six or seven signs are recognized as exactly similar to those of Letreros, of the island of Fer, and almost all the others are analogous, for we recognize at once in comparing them the same style of bizarre writing, formed of hieroglyphic characters, mainly rude arabesques.

It is apparently to the art of the aboriginal non-Chinese that the following inscription [not copied] belongs, should it be proved to be primitive; and it is the only precise mention I have ever found of the kind in my researches.

Outside of Li-tch’eng (in N. Shangtang), at some 500 li on the west towards the north, is a stone cliff mountain, on the upper parts of which may be seen marks and lines representing animals and horses. They are numerous and well drawn, like a picture.

So far as I could learn the Japanese are quite unable to recognize any of the characters, and they regard them as being the work of the Ainos.

I may remark that several of the characters are like the runic m. It has been suggested that they have a resemblance to old Chinese. A second suggestion was that they might be drawings of the insignia of rank carried by certain priests; a third idea was that they were phallic; a fourth that they were rough representations of men and animals, the runic m being a bird; and a fifth that they were the handicraft of some gentleman desirous of imposing upon the credulity of wandering archæologists.

I myself am inclined to think that they were the work of the peoples who have left so many traces of themselves in the shape of kitchen middens and various implements in this locality. In this case they may be Aino.

At a point about two miles and a half south of Dwara-Hath, and twelve miles north of the military station of Ranikhet in Kumaon, the bridle-road leading from the plains through Naini Tal and Ranikhet to Baijnath, and thence on to the celebrated shrine of Bidranath, is carried through a narrow gorge at the mouth of which is a temple sacred to Mahadeo, ... which is locally known by the name of Chandeshwar.

About two hundred yards south of the temple, toward the middle of the defile, rises a rock at an angle of forty-five degrees presenting a surface upon which, in a space measuring fourteen feet in height by twelve in breadth, more than two hundred cups are sculptured. They vary from an inch and a half to six inches in diameter and from half an inch to an inch in depth, and are arranged in groups composed of approximately parallel rows.

Symbolical marks, incised or drawn graffitti, not properly speaking inscriptions, have been found in Siberia, but they are not the expected primitive remains of ancient writings. Some are purely Tartar, being written in Mongolian and Kalmuck; others, obviously the work of common people, may be Arabic, while some others found on the left bank of the Jenissei river are much more interesting. They seem to me to be badly written in Syriac, from right to left horizontally, before the time of the adaptation of this writing to the Uigur and Mongol. The characters are still separated one from the other. On one of these graffitti found at the same place several Chinese characters, as written by common people, are recognizable.

Some hieroglyphical graffitti have been discovered on rocks above Tomsk, on the right bank of the Tom river, in Siberia. They are incised at a height of more than 20 feet. They are very rude, and somewhat like the famous Livre de Sauvages of merry fame in palæography. Quadrupeds, men, heads, all roughly drawn, and some indistinct lines, are all that can be seen. It looks more like the pictorial figures which can be used as a means of notation by ignorant people at any moment than like an historical beginning of some writing. There is not the slightest appearance of any sort of regularity or conventional arrangement in them.

The last we have to speak of are quite peculiar and altogether different from the others. The signs are painted in red. They are made of straight lines, disposed like drawings of lattices and window shades, and also like the tree characters of the Arabs and like the runes. They are met with near the Irtisch river, on a rock over the stream Smolank.