_Burial._--As in the previous epoch, the dead were consigned to the same kind of caves as were used for habitations, and the entombment was celebrated by the funeral-feast. These banquets afford no evidence of worship. Some have thought they not only saw signs of worship in the banquets, but also in some of the carvings. No idols have been found. That they should have no notion of a future state is not surprising, for Sir J. Lubbock has shown that there are tribes at the present time without this belief.[66] M. Edward Dupont, in his report to the Belgian minister of the Interior, on the excavations carried on in the caves, has concisely but eloquently given a synopsis of man of the reindeer epoch, in the following language: "The data obtained from the fossils of Chaleux, together with those which have been met with in the caves of Furfooz, present us with a striking picture of the primitive ages of mankind in Belgium. These ancient tribes, and all their customs, after having been buried in oblivion for thousands and thousands of years, are again vividly brought before our eyes; and, ... antiquity lives again in the relics of its former existence. "We may almost fancy that we can see them in their dark and subterranean retreats, crouching round their hearths, and skilfully and patiently chipping out their flint instruments and shaping their reindeer-horn tools, in the midst of all the pestilential emanations arising from the various animal remains which their carelessness has allowed to remain in their dwellings. Skins of wild beasts are stripped of their hair, and, by the aid of flint needles, are converted into garments. In our mind's eye, we may see them engaged in the chase, and hunting wild animals--their only weapons being darts and spears, the fatal points of which are formed of nothing but a splinter of flint. Again, we are present at their feasts, in which, during the period when their hunting has been fortunate, a horse, a bear, or a reindeer, becomes the more noble substitute for the tainted flesh of the rat, their sole resource in the time of famine. "Now, we see them trafficking with the tribes inhabiting the region now called France, and procuring the jet and fossil shells with which they love to adorn themselves, and the flint which is to them so precious a material. On one side they are picking up the fluor spar, the color of which is pleasing to their eyes; on the other, they are digging out the great slabs of sandstone which are to be placed as hearth-stones round their fire.