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ot infrequently a horse is found in a corner--the chief's own charger; and even sometimes a dog at the master's feet. Every skull, of man, woman, or animal, shows the heavy single blow which severed life. Not without due state and seemly retinue shall the hero enter on the new life which awaits him; his own best-loved companion shall minister to him; his own tried servants shall follow him as of yore; the steed which bore him safely out of many a battle, the hound which shared with him the joys of many a glorious chase, shall bear him into the fray with new and unknown foes, shall hunt down with him the game that roams the forests of the Unknown Land. As the way thither may be very long, the travellers shall not go unprovided. So around the wall are ranged dishes, platters, bowls--each containing dried-up food, various kinds of grains; also jars and tall vessels with handles, which evidently had held liquids. It is easy to see that the choicest pieces of fine and artistically ornamented pottery have been selected from the household stores. In mounds of the later periods some of the dishes and bowls are of bronze, even of gold and silver, and show considerable beauty of form and workmanship; but the jars are invariably of earthenware, as water and wine keep better in such than in metal. We must not forget that, among the countless mounds which have been opened, only a very few are like that we just looked into. The general run are much plainer, and the majority contain only one silent inmate. It was not every one could afford the luxury of a wholesale slaughter in his household. The chambers, too, are very different in size and construction, and the furnishings vary quite as much in richness and beauty. Putting away the dead in mound-graves, besides being a universal custom, was one which endured through a long series of centuries, since their contents illustrate for us the Age of Bronze through all its gradations and a goodly portion of the Age of Iron--_i.e._, the beginnings of the age in which we live ourselves. To decide which mound belongs to a later and which to an earlier period is easy, from the variety and quality of the articles, which bear witness to the degree of culture of the builders, though it is of course difficult even to give a guess in figures at just _how_ long ago, at least, the earlier mounds were built. These are all times which knew not of writing. Therefore we have no history of them; fo
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