"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 colour 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 hearthstones round their fire. "But, alas! inauspicious days arrive, and certainly misfortune does not seem to spare them. A falling in of the roof of their cave drives them out of their chief dwelling-place. The objects of their worship, their weapons, and their utensils--all are buried there, and they are forced to fly and take up their abode in another spot. "The ravages of death break in upon them; how great are the cares which are now lavished upon those whom they have lost! They bear the corpse into its cavernous sepulchre; some weapons, an amulet, and perhaps an urn, form the whole of the funeral furniture. A slab of stone prevents the inroad of wild beasts. Then begins the funeral banquet, celebrated close by the abode of the dead; a fire is lighted, great animals are cut up, and portions of their smoking flesh are distributed to each. How strange the ceremonies that must then have taken place! ceremonies like those told us of the savages of the Indian and African solitudes. Imagination may easily depict the songs, the dances and the invocations, but science is powerless to call them into life. "The sepulchre is often reopened; little children and adults came in turn to take their places in the gloomy cave. Thirteen times the same ceremonial occurs, and thirteen times the slab is moved to admit the corpses. "But the end of this primitive age is at last come. Torrents of water break in upon the country. Its inhabitants, driven from their abodes, in vain take refuge on the lofty mountain summits. Death at last overtakes them, and a dark cavern is the tomb of the wretched beings, who, at Furfooz, were witnesses of this immense catastrophe. "Nothing is respected by the terrible element. The sepulchre, the object of such care on the part of the artless tribe, is burst open before the torrent, and the bones of the dead bodies, disjointed by the water, are dispersed into the midst of the crumbling earth and stones. Their former habitation alone is exempt from this common destruction, for it has been protected by a previous catastrophe--the sinking in of its roof on to the ground of the cave."