The same author (_b_) gives an account of several strange characters found engraved on a rock of the grotto of Belmaco, in the island of La Palma, one of the Canaries. He says:
These drawings, presented that they may be compared with those of Fer Island (Los Letreros), show some fifteen signs, some of which are repeated several times and others partly effaced by weather, or at least feebly traced. But what seems most remarkable is that six or seven signs are recognized as exactly similar to those of Letreros, of the island of Fer, and almost all the others are analogous, for we recognize at once in comparing them the same style of bizarre writing, formed of hieroglyphic characters, mainly rude arabesques.
A considerable number of petroglyphs found in Asia are described and illustrated under other headings of this work. The following are presented here for geographic grouping:
It is apparently to the art of the aboriginal non-Chinese that the following inscription [not copied] belongs, should it be proved to be primitive; and it is the only precise mention I have ever found of the kind in my researches.
Outside of Li-tch’eng (in N. Shangtang), at some 500 li on the west towards the north, is a stone cliff mountain, on the upper parts of which may be seen marks and lines representing animals and horses. They are numerous and well drawn, like a picture.
Prof. Edward S. Morse (_a_) kindly furnishes the illustration, reduced from a drawing made by a Japanese gentleman, Mr. Morishima, which is here reproduced (1/30 original size) as Fig. 145 _a_:
[Illustration: FIG. 145 _a_.--Petroglyph in Yezo, Japan.]
Prof. Morse in a letter gives further information as follows: “The inscriptions are cut in a rough way on the side of the cliff on the northwestern side of the bay of Otaru. Otaru is a little town on the western coast of Yezo. The cliffs are of soft, white tufa about 100 feet high, and the inscriptions were cut possibly with stone axes, and were 1 inch in width and from 1/4 to 1/2 of an inch in depth. They are about 4 feet from the ground.”
Prof. John Milne (_a_) remarks upon the same petroglyph, of which he gives a rude copy, as follows:
So far as I could learn the Japanese are quite unable to recognize any of the characters, and they regard them as being the work of the Ainos.