Fig. 214. Professor Emile Cartailhac at the entrance of the cavern of Le Portel, Ariège. Photograph by H. F. Osborn.
Fig. 215. Finely engraved outlines of the Celtic horse and of the reindeer, in the Grotte de la Mairie, near Teyjat, Dordogne. After Capitan and Breuil.
Presenting the widest possible contrast to Niaux is the cavern of Le Portel, west of Tarascon, with its contracted entrance and a very rapidly descending passage hardly broad enough to admit the body. This narrow and tortuous cave terminates in an extremely small passage, so narrow as barely to admit the athletic and determined artist explorer, the Abbé Breuil. Here, as in Font-de-Gaume and other caverns, is one of the greatest mysteries of the cave art, namely, that these terminal and dangerous diverticules finals were wrought with some of the most careful and artistic designs. Le Portel, like Niaux, reveals a single style, but one altogether different. Very numerous bison are drawn in outline both in red and black; the sides of the body are often dotted with red or hatched in close parallel lines. On a long horizontal panel are seen many bison in red, and one observes here a finely drawn pair of bison feet in the best Magdalenian style. The horse as represented here is of a quite different type with thin upper tail and a tail-tuft resembling that of the wild ass, so that one is almost tempted to believe that the kiang is intended, but the ears are too short; it has a high rump and a high, splendidly arched neck, like that of the stallion, and the eye is better drawn; the body is covered with long vertical or oblique lines which might be mistaken for stripes, but this hatching is a matter of technique only. Again, the mane is erect, and there is no forelock; in fact, none of these Magdalenian artists has represented the horse with the forelock, indicating that this character of the modern horse was unknown in western Europe and probably came in during Neolithic times.
Fig. 216. Reindeer, cave-bear, and two horses of the large-headed forest type with arched forehead, engraved on a panel about twenty inches in length in the Grotte de la Mairie. After Capitan and Breuil.
Fig. 217. Wild cattle, bull and cow (Bos primigenius), engraved in the Grotte de la Mairie, each figure being about twenty inches in length. After Capitan and Breuil.
Of an entirely different type are the beautifully engraved miniature figures of animals discovered in 1903 in the Grotte de la Mairie.[(26)] The outlines, from 18 to 20 inches in length, are sharply engraved on the limestone stalagmites; they are all in the middle Magdalenian style and include the stag, reindeer, bison, cave-bear, lion, wild cattle, and two very distinct types of horses: one of these types is large-headed with an arched forehead; this is probably the forest type and perhaps represents the horse most abundant at the Solutré encampment (see p. 288); the other horse is small-headed, with a perfectly flat, straight forehead, corresponding with the Arab or Celtic pony type.