the case with the Maori cannibals of New Zealand, and was seen of old in the Huns and the Northmen, whose descendants are now among the most civilised races of the world. It is obvious, at any rate, that the savage vices of the Fijians are compatible with considerable skill in such arts as pertain to their primitive condition. Their musical instruments are superior to those of the Polynesians, and include the pan-pipe and others unknown in the islands beyond their range. Their pottery exhibits great variety of form; and some of the vessels combined in groups present a curious correspondence to familiar examples of Peruvian art. Their fishing-nets and lines are remarkable for neat and skilful workmanship, and they carry on agriculture to a considerable extent. “Indeed,” remarked the ethnologist of the United States Expedition, in summing up the characteristics of the Fijians, “we soon began to perceive that the people were in possession of almost every art known to the Polynesians, and of many others besides. The highly-finished workmanship was unexpected, everything being executed until recently, and even now for the most part, without the use of iron. In the collection of implements and manufactures brought home by the Expedition, the observer will distinguish in the Fijian division something like a school of arts for the other Pacific islands.” All this has to be kept in view, in any attempt to gauge the intellectual development, or determine the degree of civilisation, of the palæolithic draughtsmen and carvers of the Garonne. One of the scenes introduced by M. Figuier, in the fanciful illustrations of his _L’Homme primitif_, represents a group of artists, such as, except for their costume, might have been sketched from the students of the École des Beaux Arts. Their mode of work was probably much more akin to the intermittent labours of the Indian, whose elaborately sculptured pipe is laid aside, and resumed again—often after prolonged intervals,—before it receives the finishing touch. But though the drawings and the carvings of those primitive artists alike manifest remarkable skill and observant imitation, the former are the objects of special interest. Their carvings appear to have been executed, with rare exceptions, for the decoration of favourite implements and weapons, in accordance with a practice common to many diverse races and conditions of society. But the drawings have no such motive. They more nearly correspond to the sketch or drawing from nature of the modern artist; and furnish evidence of peculiar attributes, strikingly distinguishing the race of that remote age from most others that have succeeded them.