and no trustworthy criteria, and that so learned and brilliant an
archæologist as Mr. Joyce professes ignorance, I am not much disposed to
believe that anyone knows more. I am aware that certain amateurs think
to enhance the value of their collections by conferring dates on their
choicer specimens; I can understand why dealers encourage them in this
vanity; and, seeing that they go to the collectors and dealers for their
information, I suppose one ought not to be surprised when journalists
come out with their astounding attributions. The facts are as follows.

We know that Portuguese adventurers had a considerable influence on
African art in the sixteenth, and even in the fifteenth, century. There
begins our certain knowledge. Of work so influenced a small quantity
exists. Of earlier periods we know nothing precise. There are oral
traditions of migrations, empires, and dynasties: often there is
evidence of past invasions and the supersession of one culture by
another: and that is all. The discoveries of explorers have so far
thrown little light on archæology; and in most parts of West and
Central Africa it would be impossible even for trained archæologists to
establish a chronological sequence such as can be formed when objects
are found buried in the sand one above the other. But, in fact, it is to
vague traders and missionaries, rather than to trained archæologists,
that we owe most of our fine pieces, which, as often as not, have been
passed from hand to hand till, after many wanderings, they reached the
coast. Add to all this the fact that most African sculpture is in wood
(except, of course, those famous products of early European influence,
the bronze castings from Benin), that this wood is exposed to a
devastating climate--hot and damp--to say nothing of the still more
deadly white ants, and you will probably agree that the dealer or
amateur who betickets his prizes with such little tags as "Gaboon, 10th
century" evinces a perhaps exaggerated confidence in our gullibility.