From Monkey to Man, or, Society in the Tertiary Age

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Title: From Monkey to Man, or, Society in the Tertiary Age - A Story of the Missing Link
Author: Bierbower, Austin
Language: English
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[Illustration: THE BATTLE IN THE SWAMP.]

FROM MONKEY TO MAN
Society in the Tertiary Age

A Story of the Missing Link

SHOWING THE FIRST STEPS IN INDUSTRY, COMMERCE, GOVERNMENT,
RELIGION AND THE ARTS

WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT EXPEDITION FROM COCOANUT
HILL AND THE WARS IN ALLIGATOR SWAMP

BY
AUSTIN BIERBOWER
Author of “The Virtues and Their Reasons,” “The Socialism of
Christ,” “The Morals of Christ,” Etc.

Illustrated by H. R. HEATON

CHICAGO
INGERSOLL BEACON CO
1906

M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY
PRINTERS AND BINDERS
407-429 DEARBORN STREET
CHICAGO

PUBLISHER’S PREFACE.

The extraordinary interest which this book has excited has induced
the publisher to issue a new and revised edition at a reduced price,
believing that, as it is the first attempt at a prehistoric novel, it
will have a wide reading. The subject, the characters and the period are
here for the first time introduced into fiction.

The scenes are laid in the Tertiary Age when, according to the Darwinian
Theory, men were emerging from the Ape, and they portray the supposed
exploits of our ancestors at that stage of development. The author has
aimed to exhibit the features of the time—climate, foliage, animals,
etc.—as understood by Geologists and Biologists, and to be scientifically
accurate, with no more variations in proportion than are usual in
historic fiction.

If Evolution is the true theory of man’s origin there is a long period
of forgotten history, covering thousands of centuries, during which men
lived and fought and learned, and this book seeks to revivify it and
make it realizable. In this period nearly all the arts and industries
were started, and the author suggests their crude origin in a variety
of episodes. The origin of arms, building, religion and government, the
first use of fire and clothing and the primitive form of many social and
business problems are indicated in the course of a simple story.

In addition to its valuable scientific hints, the work is rich in
practical wisdom. It is also spiced throughout with a vein of quiet
humor which provokes mirth and makes it highly entertaining as well as
instructive.

The illustrations by H. R. Heaton, an artist of national reputation, are
believed to be the best work of his genius.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

FRONTISPIECE

SOSEE’S MOTHER ENCOUNTERS THE SNAKE 10

SHAMBOO’S RIDE 20

THE ROBBERS OF THE AMMI 31

“SEE BELOVED HOW THE MIGHTY FALL AT THE WORD OF SIMLEE
AND THE STROKE OF SHOOZOO” 36

“I HAVE BROUGHT ONE OF THE AMMI INSTEAD” 51

KOREE AND SOSEE ENCOUNTER A MONSTER 58

THE RESCUE OF ORLEE 69

THE BATTLE IN THE SWAMP 80

THE CATASTROPHE 97

THE FIGHT WITH THE FIRE-MONSTER 102

THE GREEDY OKO 120

POUNDER’S MISHAP 129

THE BATTLE BEGINS 139

KOREE’S CHALLENGE 149

THE RETREAT OF THE LALI 161

SOSEE WARNS THE AMMI 172

THE WOOD-EATING ANIMAL IN THE CAMP OF THE AMMI 191

THE AMMI BREAKING THROUGH THE ICE 198

SOSEE’S STRATEGY 212

RETURN OF THE AMMI TO COCOANUT HILL 225

CHAPTER I.

[Illustration]

About ninety years after the fight between the Monkeys and Snakes on
Cocoanut Hill, which was five hundred thousand years before our era, and
near the end of the Tertiary Age, Sosee was sitting on a limb sucking a
mango, when Koree came up in great consternation.

“The fat baboon, from across the swamp,” he said, “has carried off Orlee
while her mother was hunting berries in the bushes.”

“If you love me, Koree,” replied Sosee, uttering a wild scream, “you will
fetch her back, and bring me the tail of the baboon before night.”

Sosee, who spoke these words, was a comely girl of twelve years, one of
the new race which had recently separated from the Apes, and would no
longer recognize them as equals. There was a hostility between the Apes
and these upstarts, and frequent incursions were made from the territory
of one on that of the other.

The Apes had mostly retreated to the swamps and forests beyond, while
the new race were occupying the region about Cocoanut Hill, which their
ancestors of two generations before had taken, after many conflicts, from
the Apes, and from which they had driven the savage beasts. Here the
parents of Sosee were living, and here Sosee had grown to womanhood.

The Cocoanut Hill region was a large tract, in what is now Southern
France, stretching from Alligator Swamp toward the mountains in the
distance. This section was plentifully covered with fruit trees—mangos,
palms, figs and limes; the under brush furnished berries and succulent
herbs; the waters of the swamp, which bordered this land, abounded in
fish, frogs, turtles, snakes and alligators; while great flocks of
ducks, geese and other water fowl frequented it at seasons. The forests
abounded in Uri, Woolly Oxen, Musk-Deer and other game. This abundance of
vegetable and animal life supplied food for the Ammi, as the new race was
called, and they would have lived in comfort but for the attacks of the
Apes beyond the water, who, keeping an envious eye on these fruits, often
came over the Swamp for food.

Shortly before the event of which we speak, some apes in one of these
predatory incursions, were met by a larger number of the Ammi, when
several of the former were killed, and one, a small boy, taken prisoner.
The Ammi, expecting the Apes to attempt reprisals for this, kept a watch
at night, while during the day they guarded their children.

Several times on the day mentioned signs of approaching Apes had been
seen. Gimbo, the grandfather of Sosee, who still persisted in walking on
four feet, (although the Ammi generally had begun to walk upright), said
he could scent the trail of the Apes, and had noticed the marks of one
walking on four feet. But Gimbo was deemed a garrulous old man, somewhat
unreliable, who claimed exceptional wisdom about the animals lower than
men, so that little attention was given to his warning.

The mother of Orlee, however, had observed a sudden starting up of geese
from the swamp; but this also raised little suspicion, as they might
have been startled by a fox. Later, however, her keen sense of hearing
detected successive splashings in the water, as if made by plunging
alligators or turtles on the approach of an enemy. She was, accordingly,
slow to leave the spot where her child was playing—a girl of three years,
the sister of Sosee.

Gaining confidence, however, with the restored silence of the swamp,
she took a club with which she usually warded off reptiles when hunting
berries, or killed them when requiring them for food; and, armed in this
way, she waded into the swamp, still keeping, however, in sight of her
child.

As the berries were plentiful, she had soon eaten all she wanted, making
thereof her morning meal, when she was attracted by some luscious ones
farther in the swamp, which she hurried to get for the child. Having
filled her hands she was next startled by a huge snake of the Boa
species, which swung suddenly down from a tree, like a great vine and
sought to fasten its coils around her.

[Illustration: SOSEE’S MOTHER ENCOUNTERS THE SNAKE.]

Dropping the berries and uttering a wild scream, she seized the serpent,
and, sinking her nails and teeth in its flesh, began a fatal struggle
with it. The snake, which had fastened one coil about her leg, swung
round violently with the intention of encircling her waist. Her screams
startled the child, which began crying, and the two noises attracted the
attention of Koree, the lover of Sosee, who was sporting in a puddle near
by.

Koree started to the rescue of the woman, but, in the tangled underbrush
could not find her; but, instead, he ran against a gigantic ape, which
had also been startled by the cries, and, in his fright, was running
about in confusion. This ape gave Koree a powerful blow with his fist,
and then ran out of the swamp to where the child was playing. Seizing the
child he next ran with it into the bushes and was out of sight.

Too weak, or too frightened, to follow, Koree now hurried back to give
the alarm, when he encountered Sosee on the tree, as we have related.
Sosee’s screams and calls to Koree to rescue the child roused some men
near by, who now all rushed for the swamp.

As they approached they saw the mother of the child emerging from the
bushes carrying the huge snake in triumph about her neck, part of which
was hanging down in long folds, pending from her arms. Never was a woman
prouder over a necklace of diamonds or pearls. Her bloody face and arms
added to the terror inspired by her Amazonian air, as, with a proud step,
she advanced to the men and threw down her trophy.

Disburdened of her load, and sinking from the stimulant of battle, she
now became faint, through loss of blood, and was about to drop to the
ground; for, in the struggle with the serpent, she had been severely
bitten and wrenched, so that her own blood was mingled with that of the
reptile on her body.

As she was about to faint away, however, she observed that her child was
gone, when all the excitement returned which had attended her in battle,
and, on hearing of its capture, she sent up a wail which echoed through
the forest, and flew into a rage that terrified the bystanders.

CHAPTER II.

[Illustration]

The events related in the preceding chapter occurred, as we have said,
about ninety years after the fight between the Monkeys and Snakes on
Cocoanut Hill. As the time of the Ammi is reckoned from this fight, we
shall go back, for awhile, to the affairs which immediately preceded it.

The Apes of all kinds had, till then, been roving promiscuously over the
country along with wild beasts of every description. The forests being
free to all, and likewise the swamps, there was a scene like that of the
jungles of Central Africa to-day. Land and water teemed with life, and
were animated with struggles for the food of the region. Gigantic lions,
tigers, woolly rhinoceroses, mastodons, cave-bears and other savage
beasts sported in their favorite element. Serpents were particularly
abundant, especially in the great Alligator Swamp, from which they
emerged to the high country to catch rabbits and other game. The Apes,
which were mostly vegetarians, did not at first interfere with the more
savage beasts hunting in these forests; so that there was an endless
variety of animals in the region of which we speak.

The Apes at this time lived mostly on trees, especially at night. This
was necessary on account of the more savage beasts which roamed over
the ground. When game became scarce the tigers and some other animals
attacked the Apes, and often killed them. The weaker animals which could
not climb the trees were generally in danger of becoming the prey of the
stronger ones.

This arboreal life became in time irksome to the Apes, many of whom
had made some progress in methods of living and hunting. These were,
accordingly, anxious to acquire a right to the ground, and security in
its possession. They had become so large that a fall from a tree was a
serious matter. Nor was a tree always convenient to climb when they were
in danger.

They could not, however, come to the ground while so many savage beasts
occupied it. A sleeping ape was liable to suffer death if met by a tiger,
especially in recent years when many fights occurred between the two. The
Apes, accordingly, conceived the project of ridding the country of the
more dangerous animals.

There were two principal species of Apes at this time, the Ammi, who
afterwards became known as men, and the Lali, who were the enemies of the
Ammi on the other side of the swamp; and, though there had come to be
marked differences between the two, (of which we shall presently speak,)
they were, at this time, both living together as Apes (the Man-Apes
of Biology), and were alike interested in ridding the country of the
stronger beasts.

A council was, accordingly, called to take measures for their common
welfare. In this council they gave their respective views without those
formalities which now attend such gatherings. They spoke mainly in
gestures and growls, which constituted all there was of language then,
(articulate speech not having been developed beyond a few broken sounds).
One, Shamboo, believed to be the great-grandfather of Sosee, was the
acknowledged leader of the Apes, and he directed the deliberations of
this assembly. Speaking in the manner indicated, this Ape harangued the
multitude to the following effect:

“Tailed Apes, upright Apes, Baboons and Monkeys of low degree: I am tired
living on trees. I am getting too old and fat to climb, and cannot go up
in the air every time I want to sleep. My eyes are bad, and can’t tell a
rotten limb from a sound one. Only two days ago, while eating a cocoanut,
the limb broke on which I was sitting, and I fell to the ground, striking
a porcupine; and there has been a sick monkey ever since. Just before the
big rain I was chased up a tree by a hyena, when, before I got out of
reach, he seized my tail, already reduced to a stump, and I had to let
go of either the tree or my tail. I stuck to the tree, but to-day I am
a tailless Ape! Why should the ground be conceded to tigers and snakes?
The earth was made for monkeys. Our food is mostly on the ground, and it
is easier to walk on a level than up and down. We can run faster than
we can climb. We cannot fly, like the birds, and there is no easy way
for such big folks to get up a tree. But we dare not come to the ground.
If we do we must fight some brute. The tigers want the earth; and we
can’t afford to maintain perpetual war. I am, therefore, for peace, and
so favor killing off our enemies. If the forces of the trees will but
combine, dropping their disputes about the milk that is in the cocoanut,
they can conquer the forces of the earth. Resolve, then, monkeys all, to
make a fight for the land, and not be so often found up a stump. True
to your ape-hood, join me in an oath to drive out the ground-beasts.
Everything in this valley will then be ours. We shall have the plants
and berries, and frogs, and little fishes. We can then lie down to sleep
without falling off, and run about without getting tired. Whoever loves
monkeykind will, therefore, follow my advice. Now, all of you who are
resolved to drive out the beasts which claim this land, swear with me by
scratching your top rib while I crack this butternut and eat the kernel.”

The eloquence of Shamboo gained the assembly to his proposition. Every
rib got a scratch, and the solemnity of the hour was felt in every
breast. An aged priest of the Mountain Apes bowed low his head, breathing
a blessing on the undertaking; and from that hour the savage beasts of
Cocoanut Hill were doomed.

CHAPTER III.

[Illustration]

The plan of attack on the beasts was two-fold. One method was to
associate together and make a combined assault by two’s or more,
according to the strength of their antagonists. The other was to get on
trees and spring upon the enemy when asleep or at other disadvantage. In
this way they hoped to so worry the larger beasts that they would quit
the region of their own accord.

This coöperation was important as being the beginning of association
among Apes. By uniting in two’s and three’s for attack or defense they
learned to confederate, and so laid the foundations of society. Till
that time they had roamed the forests and jungles solitary, each one
hunting alone his food, like the tigers, and forming no lasting or
frequent attachments. They met the opposite sex casually at a spring
or in the fruit regions. They did not recognize their own children, or
care for them except for a few years after birth, until they could roam
for themselves. Only occasionally did they meet for a common purpose,
and then only for a little while. They were not gregarious, though they
sometimes met in large numbers where food was abundant, and became
slightly acquainted. They chattered or fought while together, and then
parted to see one another perhaps no more.

Having now, however, formed a League of the Apes, offensive and
defensive, these animals, who disputed with the tigers the right to be
called the lords of the land, soon became acquainted with one another,
and therefore learned to like each other better. They found that they
had many common interests, and there sprang up warm attachments between
them. Their mutual disagreements disappeared before their disagreements
with the tigers. They learned to help one another that they might destroy
a common enemy, founding their unity on their common hatred. Many
sentiments were, accordingly, developed, to which ape-hood had before
been a stranger. Hearts were touched where before there were thought to
be only stomachs, and a new sentiment—love—was awakened in the race; and
when they parted after a night’s watch, or fight, they often presented
one another with a cocoanut or bull-frog. Unselfishness gradually took
the place of unrestrained competition, and a monkey etiquette grew up and
became recognized. Some of the apes became noticeably polite, especially
to the opposite sex, and there was soon quite a little social intercourse
between them. They would go out by two’s and three’s for food or water,
as well as for a fight, and thus they learned to labor together, as well
as fight together.

Nor was this all. Having got together in a league, it was not easy to
separate them. They came together to stay, and they stayed to co-operate
in many measures besides their own defense. After their wars certain
industries sprang up, among which was the damming of part of the Swamp
(where it was entered by a stream), so as to form a lake, in which they
could with more convenience drink and wash. Having tasted the sweets
of association, they wished, in short, to remain in society; and when
subsequently the younger ones became restive, and tried to regain the
liberty of independent or single life, the older heads compelled them to
adhere to the social compact.

Scarcely had they formed their alliance for war, when they set out for
the enemy. Their chief foe was the tigers and snakes, because these were
most numerous, although there were some lions, pachyderms, bears, and
other savage beasts, of which also they meant to rid the country. One
proposed that they all start out together, saying that while they would
thus be fighting as a whole, the enemy, which would be fighting singly,
could be easily overcome. Shamboo opposed this plan, however, as likely
to attract too much attention, and, perhaps, to cause the tigers also to
confederate. “Let us,” he said, “indeed, fight each enemy singly; but it
does not require more than three apes to kill one tiger.”

They accordingly broke up into small bands, and started on a tiger
hunt. On the first day of the War of the Beasts, a body of three, led
by Shamboo, climbed a Yew tree near the Swamp, where a great tiger was
known to come to slake his thirst. It was agreed, or rather laid down by
Shamboo as the method of attack, that when the tiger should pass under
the tree, one of them, the youngest and strongest, should drop upon the
tiger’s back, and fasten his jaws in his neck, when the rest would follow
and dispatch their victim.

[Illustration: SHAMBOO’S RIDE.]

Scarcely had this been resolved upon, when the tiger appeared, marching
slowly toward their tree. He was carrying a sheep in his mouth, and his
great show of muscular strength and fierce expression seemed to despise
danger. The ape who had been chosen to drop on the tiger drew back in
fear, and told Shamboo to do that part himself.

No time was to be lost, and, before the words of the timid ape were
fully uttered, Shamboo dropped upon the tiger. His great weight crushed
the beast to the ground, and compelled it to let go of the sheep. The
tiger immediately got up, however, and, not knowing what to do, in his
embarrassment, started on a full run. Shamboo clung to his back, and away
they both went, like John Gilpin, dashing over hill and dale and through
jungle and forest. The deer fled at their approach, squirrels ran up the
trees, a flock of ducks started from a pool near by, and the flight of
birds and beasts from their path was like the stampede which precedes a
prairie fire. Shamboo’s teeth were fixed in the tiger’s neck, and his
feet like spurs were sunk in his sides.

So they ran, and the earth rapidly receded behind them. The other two
apes followed, but at a distance, so that the tiger and Shamboo were
practically alone, and must soon, it seemed, try their strength in single
combat. The tiger, however, was too scared to take an inventory of what
he was carrying, while Shamboo’s thoughts were divided equally between
how to hold on and how to let go. The tiger himself soon solved this
problem for Shamboo by running through a hole in a thicket which was too
small to admit both, so that Shamboo was knocked off. He fell into a
cluster of bushes, and the fall was so violent as to cause him to turn
several summersets, so that he did not know in which direction he had
been going. The tiger, lightened of his load, but not of his scare, kept
on, and was soon out of sight and out of this story.

Shamboo picked himself up and, looking round, spied the other two
apes coming slowly toward him. He limped back to them with an air of
disappointment, rather than of suffering, and, without uttering a word,
fell upon the younger ape, who had shown cowardice, and killed him for
his breach of military discipline in disobeying orders.

The fame of that ride and that fight remains to the time of this story,
though there are different versions of it among the Ammi and the Apes
beyond the Swamp.

And long subsequent to this time, when the descendants of these Apes got
to riding on the backs of horses and cattle, there was a legend ascribing
the origin of the uses of beasts of burden to this unwilling ride of
Shamboo; and in the mythology of the later Apes Shamboo became the god of
Domestication.

CHAPTER IV.

[Illustration]

In the course of the contest with the tigers, which lasted several years,
many improvements were made in the art of warfare, which afterwards
served the Apes in time of peace. After the experience of Shamboo and
others, who attacked unarmed the savage beasts, they found it advisable
to fight at a distance. Taking their position on trees, which was done
for safety, the problem was how to reach the enemy. They commonly
showered cocoanuts and other large fruits upon them, which, while
annoying to small animals, had little effect on tigers. They next carried
stones up the trees for missiles, which they dropped with some effect. In
time they became expert at throwing, and could strike a tiger’s head ten
paces off. Shoozoo claimed to have killed a hyena at a distance of many
alligators’ lengths with a rock larger than his head; but Shoozoo had a
reputation for lying, which was greatly developed during the war.

The Apes also broke off branches of trees, with which they pounded the
savage beasts, not only by throwing them from the trees as missiles, but
by using them as clubs, until they became skilled in the art of pounding,
as well as of making clubs. When catamounts, bears and other climbing
beasts attacked them on the trees, and fought paw to paw with them, they
used the stones as knives, and often cut their assailants fatally, having
learned to select sharp stones for this purpose, and, in time, to sharpen
them specially. Before the war they had used stones only to crack nuts.
But now they learned both to use them for many other purposes, and to
make them into the size and shape which best suited them.

The first manufactures of the Apes were thus of military implements,
their necessity being the mother of invention. In time of peace, however,
they found new uses for these implements, like their descendents who
afterwards beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into
pruning-hooks. The missiles with which they had attacked the tigers they
soon used for hunting, and in time for building. When they came down from
the trees, and lived more on the earth, they knocked cocoanuts down,
instead of climbing after them; they killed birds and rabbits by throwing
stones at them, instead of lying in wait for them, and they speared fish
with their clubs which they had learned to sharpen. They could thus act
at a greater distance, and so had more power, both to defend themselves
from wild beasts, and to obtain food.

Shoozoo, the liar just mentioned, told some wonderful stories of a stone
which he sharpened and the exploits he performed with it. He saw a lion,
he said, sleeping at the foot of a tree, when, throwing the stone, he cut
the tree from its stump, which, falling on the lion, killed him; and he
would have brought the dead lion to verify the story, but it was so big
that all the monkeys of Cocoanut Hill could not have carried it away; but
he showed the sharpened stone as evidence.

He related also that when hunting owls at night, after killing all
that were in the forest, and having nothing more to throw at, he threw
his stone at the moon, and hit it with such force that he cut off a
piece; and, as evidence of this, he pointed to the moon, which was,
indeed, seen to have a large piece gone, so that many Apes believed him
for once, though they knew he was habitually a liar. For the evidence
of their senses was generally deemed enough for the Apes. Shamboo,
however, doubted the story and asked Shoozoo why he did not bring home
the other piece of the moon. “When I cut it off,” he replied, “it fell
into the Swamp and was swallowed by an alligator. I expect to catch that
alligator, and then I will show you the rest of the moon.”

The Apes of Cocoanut Hill, however, who placed little confidence in
Shoozoo’s stories, placed less in his promises; although the next
generation, which accepted him as the founder of their religion, believed
him to be a better man, and accepted his stories as history and his
promises as prophecy; so that what was incredible to contemporaries
became indisputable to posterity; and the traditions that gathered
about his name were sufficient to silence the doubts in a generation
later which they had raised in a generation before. In course of time
the bigger stories only gained credence, the rest being forgotten; so
that what was received with most distrust was handed down with most
confidence; and the farther they got from the time of their performance
the easier it was thought to be to get at the truth about them.

For many generations every alligator that was killed was opened in
order to find the moon; and, though it was often claimed to be found,
there was never as much confidence in the story of its recovery as of
its loss; for the Apes early learned to distinguish between religious
stories, and only accepted those for which there was adequate evidence.
The uninterrupted testimony of the fathers, which had come down in
regular succession, and had never been doubted, was deemed the best
evidence. Apes have accordingly differed about the incidentals of the
story; for many accounts have come down about the details, which are not
to be reconciled; but as to the great essentials—that the holy Shoozoo
actually did knock off a piece of the moon, and that an alligator
swallowed it—there is a substantial agreement; and as often as the moon,
in generations later, appeared in crescent form, the festival of the Holy
Crescent was celebrated by throwing sharpened stones in the air in honor
of the great exploit of their Founder, Shoozoo.

But, though Shoozoo, who passed in one generation for a liar, and in
the next for a God, left a questionable heritage to the Apes, they
still retained out of his age something of substantial value. The use
of implements was invented, and the arts of making and using them were
handed down to Monkeys and Men.

CHAPTER V.

[Illustration]

After the savage beasts had been driven from the region of Cocoanut
Hill, and the Apes had come down from the trees, and were habitually on
the ground, they found themselves encountering new dangers. The snakes
were troublesome. The snakes had, indeed, been troublesome before, but
it was mainly when they climbed the trees for birds’ nests or fruits.
The Apes did not then encounter them so often, and amid the greater
dangers from the four-footed beasts, did not find it necessary to make
war against them. But now, when the Apes walked more on the ground, they
met the snakes oftener, and under more disagreeable circumstances. The
snakes, moreover, had greatly multiplied since the destruction of the
savage beasts, many of which devoured, or fought with, snakes, or else
lived on the same food. With the departure, accordingly, of the enemies
of the serpents, and their increase of sustenance, the serpents became
powerful, and at last threatened to drive the Apes from the region. It
became dangerous to walk abroad, especially near the Swamp. At night
they disturbed the slumbers of the Apes. Shoozoo declared that he once
found two in his ear when he awoke, and that he had swallowed some big
ones during the night, although Shamboo declared contemptuously that he
only had worms.

Many precautions were, from time to time, taken against the snakes. Some
of the Apes persisted in still sleeping in the trees. Most of them,
however, sought holes in the ground and caves in the rocks, which they
fortified by piling brush and earth at the entrance; while others, not
finding holes conveniently at hand, dug them and covered them with brush,
so as to form a mound. The race had thus begun to build, and one of the
first arts—architecture—was founded. The home originated in a fight
against the serpent.

The snakes, however, soon attacked these homes, and all the more eagerly
because of the food stored in them. For the Apes found that they could
put their structures to many uses not before known. They would hold their
provisions, as well as themselves, and would protect such provisions
from the weather, as well as from the snakes, and so preserve them for
a longer time. Their homes accordingly became store-houses, and this
facility for keeping provisions by storage stimulated the collection of
them. Instead of gathering only what they wanted to eat at the time, the
Apes now picked up all they could find, and placed it in their dug-outs.
They soon learned to allow nothing to go to waste, and became economical.
They even collected when they did not want anything, from the mere fact
that they could store it, and thus became provident. They believed they
might want in the future, and so often stored large quantities; for
some Apes early became avaricious. They got in time to be as proud of
their possessions as of their homes, and often gathered from a feeling
of ambition. Shoozoo claimed that he had enough fruits in his mound to
feed all the Apes of Cocoanut Hill for a lifetime; which nobody of that
generation believed, and nobody of the next doubted.

These great quantities of fruits, we say, attracted the snakes, who were
soon found more plentiful about the homes than about the swamps. Wealth
always has its enemies, and a snake no more than a man, will work for
what he can get more easily. It was thought easier to get cocoanuts in
Shoozoo’s dug-out than by climbing a tree.

One day an ape, who had made a large collection, found, on returning
home, that all his store was gone. The snakes had broken in and eaten
what they could, and destroyed the rest by half eating it. The only sign
of the thieves was an old snake which had eaten so much that he could not
get away, and lay, like a drunken man, helpless on the ground. The ape
soon dispatched him; but that did not satisfy the ape. He was indignant,
and in his sense of suffering wrong we have the first appearance of
the ethical sentiment. The sense of wrong in others appears before we
recognize it in ourselves. The snakes did not feel the wrong; nor did the
same monkey when afterwards he went to steal some of Shoozoo’s fruit (and
found none), although he felt an indignation at Shoozoo that might be
called an incipient sense of the wrong of falsehood. He wanted to charge
Shoozoo with lying; but as that would have disclosed his own theft, or
attempt at it, he suppressed his indignation in his prudence.

[Illustration: THE ROBBERS OF THE AMMI.]

Other depredations were committed by the snakes, so that almost every
ape soon had a property grievance. Added to this was a growing personal
animosity between the Apes and the Snakes. As they had frequent contests
over the fruits, they had learned to fight, and so to hate, each other,
and finally to look upon each other as public enemies.

Nor was all the fault with the snakes. For as soon as the Apes got
to accumulating, they scoured the swamps as well as the hills for
provisions, and so met the Snakes in their own element, who had to fight
for the ungathered fruits as well as the gathered. In fact, through their
strongly developed acquisitiveness, the Apes had drained the country so
generally of its productions, that there was not enough left to support
the Snakes, so that the latter had to become criminals and attack the
gathered stores. Whenever the rich gather up everything so close as to
leave nothing for the poor, the latter will turn criminals, whether they
be snakes or men, and will steal from the rich, whether these be men or
monkeys.

There, accordingly, sprang up an antagonism between the Snakes and the
Monkeys, which had all the bitterness of class feeling, as well as of
race prejudice, and soon an irrepressible conflict was impending. The
Monkeys demanded the extirpation of the Snakes as violently as they had,
in the preceding campaign, demanded that of the tigers; and from one end
of the highlands to the other was heard the cry, “The snakes must go.”

“Steppers and crawlers,” said Shamboo, “cannot live in the same country.
If there is anything a monkey hates it is to tramp on a snake. Only
to-day one bit me in the heel, and to-morrow I shall crush his head.
Enmity is declared between our race and theirs. A snake in the grass can
never be loved by our seed; and so, until there shall be no more Snakes,
or else no more Monkeys, the conflict must go on. We came down from the
trees to the ground only to find others who had got still closer to the
ground, and were climbing the land as we had climbed the trees; and it is
a question whether belly or feet shall walk the earth. When the Apes got
down off the trees they got up on their feet; and we do not mean to again
walk through life on four feet to look for snakes.”

CHAPTER VI.

[Illustration]

The fight with the snakes, which now began, was not remarkable except for
the stories to which it gave rise. The reptiles were nearly all driven
from the country before it was over, although many of them took refuge
in the Swamp. But many tales of prowess were related of that war, which
made it famous in after times, and caused it to be the event from which
subsequent time was reckoned. Shoozoo claimed to have killed more snakes
and bigger snakes than any of the rest, and, as none could boast much of
their actual exploits, which were small compared with those claimed by
Shoozoo, they all took to lying, and thus started the habit of making
snake stories, which has come down to their descendants. These accounts
were so great that the next generation, which was the first to believe
them, ascribed marvelous powers to the heroes of this war, and so made
it the commencement of an epoch, as well as preserved the stories, with
additions, for their future theology.

“Why do you not,” asked Simlee, a young gorilla for whom Shoozoo had
formed an attachment, “bring home one of those big snakes of which you
kill so many, and proudly lay it at my feet?”

“Is it not enough,” retorted Shoozoo, “that I bring home the story of it?
The honor that comes from snakes is not in having them, but in killing
them.”

“But I want the proof of both your exploits and your love,” replied she;
“the other baboons bring something to their loved ones, and the girls
are all taunting me with your failures and your neglect. I am pining for
snakes.”

Shoozoo felt embarrassed, but, being always ready with a promise when he
lacked an achievement, said:

“I will bring you the great dragon of the swamp, the winged alligator
that rules these waters and darkens the sun when he flies.”

“I would rather have plain snakes,” she said; “I would entwine them in my
hair, and, like the girls of Jo and Kibboo, drape them as trophies about
my neck.”

“Never doubt my love,” he replied, “You shall be ensnaked; and my
conquests and your adornments will be the pride of all monkeydom.”

Simlee, thus reassured, ran laughing up a tree, while Shoozoo departed to
achieve, or invent, fame.

Arming himself with a club and a vivid imagination he went out, like Don
Quixote, for snakes and glory.

[Illustration: “SEE, BELOVED, HOW THE MIGHTY FALL AT THE WORD OF SIMLEE
AND THE STROKE OF SHOOZOO.”]

He had not gone far when he encountered an enormous snake, the first real
one he had found since the war, notwithstanding his stories, and one
which would, indeed, have delighted Simlee and given Shoozoo fame as its
slayer, had he brought it home. But, instead of Shoozoo making for the
snake, the snake made for Shoozoo. Back he turned excitedly, and there
was a long race between the snake and the monkey, the monkey keeping
ahead and gaining; and long after the snake ceased to follow Shoozoo
continued to run. At last, however, Shoozoo panting and almost out of
breath, climbed a tree, and looked about to take in the situation. And,
though he did not see the snake, he nevertheless would not come down,
but remained in the tree till night, when he sneaked home by a route
different from that by which he came.

On nearing the place where he had left Simlee in the morning, and
wondering what account he should give of his day’s adventure, he found
another huge snake lying in his path. He started back in fright; but,
assuring himself that it was dead, he approached with courage. “This,” he
said, “is my opportunity; it will both satisfy Simlee and astonish the
rest.” And so, shouldering the snake he bore it proudly back to Simlee,
and laid it at her feet with these words:

“See, beloved, how the mighty fall at the word of Simlee and the stroke
of Shoozoo!”

Simlee leaped from the tree with glee, and taking up the snake, called to
the other girls who were sitting among the branches or lying about the
mounds, to witness her good fortune.

“That’s the same snake,” replied one, “that was brought here two days ago
by Kibboo, and thrown away this morning because it had begun to smell.”

At this Simlee grew angry, and flew at the girl with open jaws, tearing
her hair and beating her face; and there would have been as hot a fight
between the women as between the men and the snakes, but for the return
of the warriors with their trophies, when the curiosity of the female
apes, which was greater than their anger, put an end to the quarrel, and
they all ran to possess themselves of the snakes for ornaments.

CHAPTER VII.

[Illustration]

We have said that the stories of the exploits of this war have been
handed down in the religion of the Apes. This is due not so much to the
achievements of the heroes as to the accounts of them by Shoozoo, who
was much more active in relating battles than in fighting them; so that,
as the heroes of the Trojan War owe more to Homer than to their own
prowess, (for many great men lived before Agamemnon, whose exploits are
forgotten for want of an imaginative historian); so the heroes of the
fight about Cocoanut Hill are chiefly indebted to the Homer of the Apes
for his reports of them. As gods, demi-gods, heroes and fair women rose
from a ten days’ skirmish on the banks of the Scamander, so divinities,
good and bad, had their origin in the Cocoanut Hill battles by reason
of a good telling. Shoozoo was, fortunately, unlike Homer, both warrior
and historian, and so, like Xenophon and Cæsar, made himself the chief
character in his accounts. The other apes nearly all drop out of history,
and their deeds are ascribed to him, who at the time of this story, was
deemed the chief character in that conflict; showing that for future fame
a good liar is better than a good fighter.

Thus the driving out of the snakes from Cocoanut Hill came in time to
be wholly attributed to Shoozoo, so that, like St. Patrick, he was
honored for the entire service of their expulsion. The great dragon, or
flying alligator, of which he only spoke to Simlee as an excuse, was,
in time, believed to have been actually killed by him, as a primitive
St. George. The snake that had entered the mound of one of the apes,
and gorged himself with its treasured fruits, and which was killed
by the ape, was alleged to have been slain by Shoozoo while guarding
great treasures in a cave, as Siegfried slew the Nibelungen dragon. The
expulsion of the snakes from Cocoanut Hill found its way into various
stories about a primitive pair of apes—Shoozoo and Simlee—whose fruit
was stolen by snakes, for which the snakes were driven from the country;
reversing the story of Adam and Eve, who took the fruit from the snake
and were themselves expelled, instead of the snake. Had Adam been his own
biographer, like Shoozoo, the story of Eden might have been reversed.

The long contest and great enmity engendered between the Monkeys and
the Snakes, also caused in time the serpent to be taken to represent
everything bad, and this conflict came in the Apian Mythology to be
represented as the conflict between good and evil, in which a great
serpent fought with Shoozoo and was overcome by him, but not altogether
slain; so that, as in the Persian Theology, the contest between good and
evil still went on, although Shoozoo was expected to come again in the
great future, and put the serpent entirely under his feet.

Also, as the serpent came to represent evil, it was believed that the
great winged alligator, with which Shoozoo fought, was the King of Evil,
or Devil, and, that, being the chief of serpents, he led all assaults
against the interests of the Apes. He was pictured with wings, tail, and
great claws, and was supposed to be the power that ruled over Alligator
Swamp, or the Land of the Bad. Apes frightened their children by saying
that the great flying Alligator would come up out of the Swamp and devour
them. Simian demonology thus had its birth. Like Juno springing from the
head of Jove, it issued full grown out of the imagination of Shoozoo,
with an alligator for its only foundation in fact.

It will thus be seen that the fight between the Monkeys and Snakes on
Cocoanut Hill, which was important in the history, became more important
in the mythology of the Apes, and, from its prominence in their profane
and sacred traditions, it is natural that the Apes should make it the
commencement of an epoch.

CHAPTER VIII.

[Illustration]

After the Snakes had been driven from the region of Cocoanut Hill, and
the land thus rid of both wild beasts and reptiles, the Apes, who had now
undisputed possession, got to fighting among themselves for the land.
Those, therefore, who had united for defense now divided for conquest.

There were two principal varieties of Apes, as we have said,—the Ammi
from whom the Men are descended, and the Lali, who, while resembling the
former, were inferior in manners, and more closely resembled the present
Orang-outang. They had both sprung from the same original stock, and,
until several generations before, lived together in a more southerly
country. At length they separated, (while still in the south), the Ammi
going eastward, and the Lali westward, like the separation between
Abraham and Lot.

Being thus separated, and so removed from mutual influence, they soon
diverged in customs. The Ammi, under more favorable circumstances, began
to walk erect, to live more on the ground, to find many uses for their
hands, and to make some progress in speech. The Lali, who had wandered
into a less hospitable country, made no progress whatever, but rather
degenerated; so that when, generations later, the two varieties met again
on Cocoanut Hill, there were marked differences between them.

They had both come to the Cocoanut Hill country in a great migration of
monkeys from the South, the Ammi coming from the southeast and the Lali
from the southwest. This migration was caused by the failure of fruits
in the south on account of some cataclysm in Nature of which we have no
reliable accounts; and monkeys of every kind came north, so that there
were soon all the varieties of which we have spoken in the Cocoanut Hill
region. And this failure of fruits, we may add, was a principal cause of
the providence of the Monkeys in laying up stores; for they were anxious
that a second famine should not occur like that in the land from which
they had come.

These apes, having therefore met again, met with differences such as did
not separate them in the south country; and, though they imitated one
another to some extent (the Lali picking up some of the sounds of the
Ammi, and so acquiring by degrees the habit of speaking, and also walking
at times upright and using their hands), there were, nevertheless,
irremovable differences between the two; and, though they made common
cause as long as they had to fight tigers and snakes, they again asserted
their differences with the return of peace, and so found it impossible to
assimilate.

In view of this incongeniality the Ammi in time were found associating
wholly among themselves, and the Lali likewise among themselves.
Jealousies and suspicions arose between the two, and frequently fights.
Class distinctions gave rise to class controversies, and finally to class
wars. The Lali were soon hated as much as the snakes by the Ammi, who
conceived the project of driving them from the country; and the Lali, in
turn, resolved also to get the country for themselves.

After several conflicts, in which now one party and then the other was
successful, and after several temporary compromises, in which they tried
to live together, the Lali, partly vanquished and partly persuaded,
consented to withdraw to the lands beyond the Swamp, leaving the Ammi in
possession of the Cocoanut Hill region.

The separation, however, was no settlement. The Lali claimed the land
which they did not take, and hoped to get in the future what they were
willing to surrender for the present. The two parties stood, like Germany
and France over Alsace and Lorraine, growling much, but doing little.
Occasionally they made incursions into each other’s territory, and
carried away some fruit or provisions; but, though they talked chiefly
of war, they lived mainly in peace. Separated by snakes and swamps, they
were kept at peace by the difficulty of coming together. The danger of
crossing, and the delay in going around the Swamp, were too great for war.

This was the condition and situation of the two forces which occupied the
world as known to our ancestors at the time of this story.

Having made this digression on the antiquities of the Apes and a bit
of their history, in which we have seen the origin of their religion,
government and industries, and of many of their customs, we shall now
return to the scenes beginning this story, which are nearly a century
later.

CHAPTER IX.

[Illustration]

Sosee had come down from the tree in which she received the news of the
rape of Orlee, described in Chapter I, and, though she had given orders
to Koree to bring back the child, she did not herself remain inactive.
She rushed into the crowd, and, calling upon all, with wild screams, to
rescue the child, went herself into the Swamp, and without any notion
of where she was going, wandered about aimlessly till night, being
completely lost. She found her way back only by the light of the moon,
whose position in the heavens was some guide in her wanderings. Nor would
she have returned at all, had she not hoped that some one else had, in
the mean while, brought back the child.

On returning to the place from which she had started, she was distressed
to learn that Orlee was not found, and she could scarcely be restrained
from immediately starting again in pursuit of her. As Koree, however,
had not yet returned, having searched farther and later than any, except
Sosee, she hoped that he, inspired by her love, would come back with
success. She had most confidence in him because she had most love for
him, believing that what most pleased her fancy would best serve her
purpose.

Her first disappointment in love was when she saw Koree return without
the child; for in this crisis she felt more for her sister than for her
lover, the newly lost being ever dearer than the long loved. Koree had
failed to meet her expectation, or rather her desire; and in times of
disappointment the little that is lacking outweighs all that is not.

“You have failed to bring back Orlee and the tail of the fat baboon,” she
said, “Despair of my love till you fetch me both.”

This was spoken in the half-articulate manner already explained, as was
the balance of the conversation (which we translate, however, into modern
expression).

“What all the race of the Ammi could not do,” he replied, “you ought not
to blame your lover for not accomplishing.”

“The love of one,” she retorted, “can do more than the indifference of
many. If Orlee is ever found it will be by love, and not by numbers.”

“I will yet fetch her back,” he said; “love’s work is not exhausted in
one effort, but requires time for its fruit. She will come in response to
your love acting through mine. Neither man nor monkey shall defeat me, or
excel me, in this task.”

“Go, then,” she said, “and I will go with you. Love co-operates, and
never commands only.”

“I will go,” he replied: “and not care whether I return. With Sosee at my
side, I could roam forever, indifferent whither we come, so we be still
together. Had we not gone alone before we would not have returned without
Orlee; but we came back to see each other. Love left behind defeats its
own purpose sent before. If we separate we will be hunting each other,
instead of keeping our thoughts on Orlee.”

“Let us then go,” she said, “and keep ourselves and our purposes united,
and resolve not to return till we come with her.”

“I will go; for then will I have everything with me, and nothing to come
back for.”

“If you go for my company only,” she said, “and not for the child, you
will soon have neither. To be my lover you must want what I want, and not
merely want me; and if you do not get it you will soon be without me, for
love must achieve success to be rewarded with love.”

“I want more your wish than my own, and will give up everything for it.”

“Except me.”

“Yes, and you even.”

“You mean thing! I won’t go with you.”

“Well,” he replied, “I won’t go alone.”

“You don’t care for me a bit,” she said.

“You only care for me to serve your purpose,” he retorted.

“I will get Kibboo to go with me,” she next said.

“He may go,” replied Koree, “and I will stay with Alee till you return.
She is a better climber, and can run faster than you.”

“Boo! hoo! she has no hair on her back, and is meaner than you. She ran
from a little snake which I could bite in two.”

“But she loves me, and never quarrels with me.”

“She don’t love you; she only hates me, and wants to make you do so. She
loves Ki, and picked the fleas off him when he came from the Swamp this
evening.”

“Do you love me, Sosee?” he next asked with more tenderness.

“I won’t tell you,” she replied, sobbing.

“Will you go with me, and stay with me?”

“I never said I wouldn’t.”

Here followed a long pause, during which Sosee sobbed and sighed, and
Koree looked about in his mind for some excuse for making peace without
seeming to want to. Sosee came to his relief, however, with a question.

“Koree?”

“Well?”

“Will you go with me to find Orlee?”

Sosee, too proud to ask for his love, had asked for his service.

“Yes,” he replied, glad to give both, “and will not come back till we
find her.”

“Won’t that be delightful! to hunt and find her together!”

“Yes,” he replied, “and let us start to-night, and before morning we may
find her.”

But night and weariness had settled down upon them, and as the older men
and women had determined to wait till morning before recommencing the
search, the two lovers concluded to do likewise, saying that they could
then search with greater vigor.

They then walked awhile, though weary, in the moonlight, and discoursed
of love and Orlee, he speaking of his devotion and she of her confidence
that he would bring back her sister.

“How approvingly,” he said “the monkey in the moon looks down upon our
love.”

“And upon our resolution,” she replied.

They then parted to sleep for the night; and soon their love, their
weariness and their purpose were all forgotten, except in disturbed
dreams, in which he thought of wandering through unknown swamps with
Sosee, and she pictured the rescue of her sister by a heroic lover.

In the silence and longing of that night, however, Koree audibly breathed
the following sentiment, which is the first poetry made by the human race:

What is life
Without a wife?

CHAPTER X.

[Illustration]

As rosy-colored Morn advanced to greet the opening eyes of monkeys and
men, and spread her beams over Cocoanut Hill, lifting at last the veil
of mists which hung over Alligator Swamp, a fat baboon was seen wending
his way with a child in his arms to the settlement of the Lali. All night
long he had traversed wood and swamp, picking his way through bush and
fen, eluding the serpent and fleeing from the cry of the catamount, his
only companion the moon, and his only hope the morning.

“I have avenged the rape of Soolee,” he said, as he approached the
assembled Apes who were expecting the several warriors back which had
gone to the country of the Ammi to recover the child that had been
recently captured by them.

Great chatterings and shouts of gratification went up from the Lali as
they saw one of their number thus return victorious. Only the mother of
Soolee appeared distressed.

“Where is my child?” she asked.

“I have brought one of the Ammi instead,” was the response of the warrior.

“A man,” replied she, “is no compensation for a monkey; and the finding
of another is no comfort to a mother for the loss of her own.”

[Illustration: I HAVE BROUGHT ONE OF THE AMMI INSTEAD.]

“You can have her for a slave,” was the reply. “You lost one, and you get
one: it makes no difference whether you have the same or not.”

The mother, however, was not satisfied, although the rest thought her
grievance a small matter. The honor of the Apes was asserted by the
reprisal; and when the public interest is conserved the multitude cares
little for the individual loss.

Orlee was placed in charge of this woman, who, notwithstanding her
dissatisfaction, was delighted, not only at having a child, but at
the fact that it represented the vengeance of her people. This double
relation to the infant made her both love the child and mistreat it, the
first because it was a child, and the latter because it stood in place of
her own.

It was customary for the Apes, and also for the Men, when they had taken
prisoners from each other, to reduce them to slavery, a custom which had
arisen, however, only since their separation; for prior to that, they had
neither property nor interest in each other’s work; and so neither man
nor ape was believed to be worth anything. But, in acquiring property
they put value on men as well as on cocoanuts, and kept each other as a
treasure where before they had killed each other as a nuisance. Some even
went to war for the prisoners, and the more valuable they found men to be
the more they fought them, until they soon came to want enemies more than
friends, and to like them better than allies. They fought for something
instead of against something, and numbered their prisoners rather than
their victories. Both sides became kidnappers, instead of warriors, and
the principle and practice of slavery was established, as a result of
learning the worth of men.

The warrior Oboo, who had brought Orlee to the Lali, was seen all day to
hang around the woman in whose charge the child had been placed. Some
thought it was on account of his interest in the child; but shrewder
apes said it was on account of his interest in the woman. As the
newly-arrived child had obtained a mother he thought it ought also to
have a father. The female ape did not repel the advances of the warrior,
but said that if he would also restore her own child he might be father
to both. The mother was, however, much comforted for the loss of her
child by this gain of a father for it. The two wanted both to attend
to the new child, the result of which was that the child received no
attention, which proved serious, as we shall see. For they paid so much
attention to each other that they often wholly forgot the child.

This warrior, Oboo, had not a good reputation among the Lali. Several
scandals had already disgraced him, and his attention to this new woman
was looked upon with suspicion.

“No good will come of it,” said an observant ape, who remembered his
gallantries to others, and who was aware that he seized every pretext to
ingratiate himself with a susceptible female ape. His bravery, however,
had made him a favorite among the women, although his gallantry had much
to do with it. He was a Simian “Masher,” and twice got his head pounded
by male apes who did not like his attentions to their female friends.

This ape was charged with starting out for the child, not because he
wanted it, but because he wanted the mother, and because he hoped that
his bravery would be rewarded with her love. Thus are the motives of
apes, like those of men, impugned from jealousy, and our greatest
warriors are traduced by their rivals. No pains were spared to suggest
these suspicions to the woman herself, especially by another ape who
had loved her, and had likewise started for her child and come back
unsuccessful. These two male apes finally came together, and when
one charged the other with cowardice, and was charged in turn with
“spooniness,” they came to blows, or rather scratches, and would have
killed each other had not the woman interposed.

“There is not much difference between you in virtue,” she said, “and
whoever brings back my child shall be thought the braver.”

“Will you give up that ape if I bring back your child?” asked the
new-comer.

“Yes, but I will stay with him till then for having brought this one,”
was her reply.

The ape departed at this rebuff, divided in his thoughts between the
purpose of recovering the child and that of punishing his rival for his
insolence and his success.

CHAPTER XI.

[Illustration]

The morning after the quarrel and make-up between Koree and Sosee, these
two lovers started out to rescue Orlee from the captivity just mentioned.
They tried in vain to induce the Ammi to go out as a body to recapture
her, but nearly all except these two had exhausted their strength and
their interest the day before. An excitement did not last as long with
the Ammi as with their present descendants, and when they were not all
interested they were quickly reconciled to an outrage. Koree and Sosee,
however, in their first ardor of love, knew no rest, and had not yet
learned to despair.

Arming themselves, therefore, with clubs and sharp stones, they started
around the Swamp, intending to travel by day and at night to steal upon
the camp of the Lali and take the child by some artifice. They kept
along the border of the Swamp, and where it was not too deep to wade,
cut across its waters. The danger of neither wild beasts nor serpents
terrified them. They were together, and were fixed on one purpose. Koree
was willing to die with his Sosee, and Sosee believed she was in no
danger with her Koree. So with resignation or confidence they marched on,
heedless of a plunging alligator or swinging python which occasionally
disturbed the stillness of the Swamp. Occasionally they stopped to gather
mussels or climb after nuts; for they did not think it necessary to take
provisions with them. The supplies of scouts and armies in those days
were light—they foraged on the country. They marched without chart or
compass, and yet rarely missed their way; for they had learned to guide
themselves by the sun and the lay of the land. If occasionally, in the
thick of the forest, they could not get their bearings, they emerged from
the swamp to look at the mountains with whose ranges they were familiar.

It was not easy for primitive man to get lost, and it did not much matter
if he was lost. Wherever he placed his foot he was at home, carrying
his citizenship with him. Everywhere around were his possessions—the
ungathered fruits and fish and game. Everywhere were his friends—the
chance baboon or man that he might meet. Only recently, with the
association which we mentioned, had there sprung up attachments for
individuals. Before that their love was for the race, and anyone
represented that race about equally well, as in the case of dogs. Even
since they had come to associate, their attachments were not permanent;
and they relied much on chance-comers for their society. Should they,
therefore, be lost, they would not feel that they were among strangers,
any more than that they were away from home.

“If we do not find Orlee will we go back?” asked Koree.

“We will not go back till we find her,” replied Sosee.

“We could live nicely in this forest,” said he; “there is plenty of food,
and we need no company.”

“When we find Orlee,” she replied, “we will have company.”

“Two is company,” said he, “and when we find her and take her to her
mother, shall we not come here to live?”

“Let us first find her,” she persisted; “we can then decide what to do
next.”

“There is nothing that we can lack here,” mused Koree; “a forest and a
swamp include all human desires;” and then, after a pause, he added, “and
Sosee.”

“And Orlee,” interposed Sosee.

“Love in a cottage” was long antedated by “love in a forest.” A sycamore
tree was cottage enough for our first parents.

“O! O! O! O!” ejaculated Sosee, too frightened to say more, as she
suddenly ran up a tree.

“Oo! Oo! Oo! Oo!” shrieked Koree, as he ran up another tree.

The cause of this sudden fright was a huge mammoth which slowly lifted
itself from a clump of bushes and walked toward the lovers. A great hairy
elephant, twice as large as those now existing, with long front legs,
carrying his bushy body high up in the air, and a back gradually sloping
to the ground, like a giraffe—such was the monster that confronted them.

[Illustration: KOREE AND SOSEE ENCOUNTER A MONSTER.]

Sosee had run up a slim sapling which this beast could easily have torn
up with his trunk, or from which he could have shaken her down like a
cocoanut; while Koree had run up a tree stout enough, indeed, to resist
uprooting or shaking, but so low that the monster could easily have
reached him with his long trunk. Their safety lay, therefore, in their
silence, and they were accordingly quiet,—quiet even for lovers.

The mammoth was in no hurry to leave the place. He browsed about slowly,
picking up bunches of grass, or reaching after leaves. Once he picked a
trunk full of leaves from the tree in which Koree was sitting; but he
took no notice of Koree, whether because he did not see him, or because
he did not care for him. Koree and Sosee alone were concerned,—not the
pachyderm. They remained simply quiet, and left the great beast in
undisputed possession of the field. Never were two lovers more cruelly
interrupted, and never did an unwelcome intruder stay so long.

“Two is company,” said Koree to himself, “and three is a great big crowd.”

The lovers could neither touch nor speak.

“Would that our trees were nearer,” whispered Koree.

“Or stouter,” replied Sosee.

“Or taller,” returned Koree.

“Never did I think,” muttered Sosee, “that anything so great could come
between our love.”

“Ugh!” shuddered they both.

The huge beast kept on eating, unconscious that he was a bore.

“I wonder when that brute will get enough,” muttered Sosee in impatience.

“If he is going to fill all that big carcass,” replied Koree, “we are up
here for all day.”

“Our only hope is that the leaves of these trees will give out,” replied
she, “so that he must go elsewhere to finish his dinner.”

“Or that he will want to take something to drink with his meal,” replied
Koree, “and so go to the Swamp to wet his snout.”

These breathings of the lovers were unnoticed by the monster, who took
them for whisperings of the wind, and went on leisurely eating.

“Never did I see such an appetite,” said Sosee.

“Or one so contented with its dinner,” added Koree.

“I don’t like this seat,” grumbled Sosee, “I wish we were on the same
tree.”

“I neither want to sit up here,” returned Koree, “nor get down.”

“I’m hungry,” said Sosee, after a long pause. “Never did I sit so long at
a meal, and not eat anything.”

“If this meal of the brute goes on much longer,” said Koree, “we will
both starve, or else be eaten.”

Just then, to the inexpressible relief of the tired, hungry and bored
lovers, the animal showed signs of satiety. He quit eating, looked around
with an air of satisfaction, stretched himself, and made a start, as if
about to leave the place. Their gratification, however, was short. He
walked around a few steps, and then, to their dismay, lay down under the
tree on which Koree was perched, and disposed himself for an afternoon
nap.

Koree looked at Sosee, and was silent.

Sosee returned the look, but was too disgusted and empty for utterance.

“If that beast sleeps as long as he eats,” she said, “we will get neither
supper nor slumber to night.”

“We will, however,” returned Koree, “be safe; for neither ape nor snake
will attack us with such a watch at our door. So one danger wards off
another.”

They were now reconciling themselves to spend the balance of the day, and
perhaps the night, in this situation, and also to add to their weariness,
hunger and disgust, the additional discomforts of sleeplessness and
danger. For as Sosee had never slept on a tree (the Ammi having come to
the ground before her birth), it was feared that, although her feet were
still prehensile, and served her well in climbing, they might fail her
from lack of practice when it came to holding to a limb when asleep.
Koree determined not to sleep under these circumstances, both because he
could not trust himself on a tree when asleep, and because he wanted to
watch Sosee in order to rescue her from the mammoth in case she should
fall. Love up a tree was thus faithful to the last.

While they were making their preparations for a continued disappointment,
however, an accident, which at first seemed disastrous, came happily to
their relief. Koree, in restlessly changing his position, fell off the
tree, and came down with a thump on the back of the mammoth.

Whether Koree or the monster was more frightened we know not. Koree,
however, was uninjured, the great beast breaking his fall, for the huge
back of the animal reached, when lying down, well up toward the branches
on which Koree was sitting. Sosee was, perhaps, the most frightened of
all, as one is often most scared at the danger of another; and she gave a
scream which the animal hearing, believed, in connection with the thump
on his back, to be caused by some other animal that was attacking him.

He started from his sleep and his position at once, and, without looking
for the cause of danger, rushed through the forest, while Koree ran up
another tree and waited till the brute was at a safe distance. Then both
he and Sosee came down, and returned thanks to the great Shoozoo for
their deliverance.

CHAPTER XII.

[Illustration]

The two lovers had no other adventure until they came the next afternoon
to the farther side of the swamp, where the Lali were settled. There they
were astonished at the multitude of the Lali, who greatly outnumbered the
Ammi, fairly swarming in the trees and in the open country beyond.

It was not deemed safe to venture out of the Swamp in the presence of so
many apes, some of whom would doubtless recognize them as belonging to
the Ammi; so they determined to hide in the bushes till night, and then
reconnoitre.

In the meantime they had abundant opportunity to watch the movements
of the Apes, who kept in groups, as if fearing an attack, although an
occasional one was seen alone, and some few came even into the Swamp. The
two lovers did not fear the approach of single apes, or even of a small
group; for, as there were many varieties among the Lali, and not a single
kind only, as among the Ammi, the appearance of a new kind raised no
suspicion. The Ammi, or Men, moreover, were hardly distinguishable from
certain of the Lali, at least by the Apes.

“The chance of finding Orlee among so many,” said Sosee, “is not good;
and if we find her we cannot take her from them.”

“Wait till it is dark,” replied Koree, “and the groups will disperse,
when we can both approach them without suspicion, and carry her off
without resistance. Trust your lover.”

“I trust you, or I should have not come with you, or have asked you to
come,” she answered; “but I see no way to accomplish our object.”

“Do you see that big baboon beyond the crowd walking alone with an ape?”
he next asked. “He looks like the fellow that struck me when Orlee was
carried off.”

“It must be the same,” replied Sosee; “for there is a child near him
which looks like Orlee.”

“I think that is only a young monkey,” replied Koree, “which has been
taken out by its parents.”

“The three pay no attention to the other Apes,” replied Sosee, “and
are wandering still farther from them. Let us approach them; in their
absorption it will cause no alarm.”

“If it is the baboon which I think it is, he will know me,” replied
Koree. “At least I cannot mistake him.”

“If we could get a little nearer,” said she, “I could tell whether it is
Orlee or not.”

“But we cannot get near the child without getting near the parents,”
replied Koree.

“She has wandered off from her keepers,” retorted Sosee. “Let us approach
slowly.”

“Wait till it is darker,” said he. “We can then get near enough to
recognize her without being recognized by them.”

“They pay no attention to the child,” continued she, “which is moving
away from them; and if she goes much farther we can get near enough to
see her distinctly without their noticing us.”

“They seem, however,” said he, “to be much interested in something. Such
earnestness among monkeys has a meaning.”

“It cannot concern the child,” replied she, “and between their absorption
and her distance, we can get her away while they are thinking about
themselves.”

“I hate the looks of that baboon,” mused Koree.

“I like the looks of that child,” replied Sosee.

“I will get her if it is Orlee,” he said, “but I want to avoid a blow
from that brute. We had better be sure it is Orlee before we take the
risk of a broken head in finding out.”

“The child keeps upright far more than the others, which makes me think
it is not theirs,” said Sosee.

“I should like to have the child just to avenge the blow I received,”
said Koree; “but I don’t want to have a second blow to avenge.”

“I will take the blow if you will get the child,” replied Sosee.

“As long as the two old apes are so near it, we could not carry it off
if we got it,” he said. “They would pursue us and overtake us with our
load.”

“Two ought to be able to resist two; and Orlee would help us,” replied
she.

“Before our fight could end the other apes would come to their succor,”
said he.

“Perhaps,” suggested Sosee, “they would give up Orlee if I would stay
with them instead.”

“I do not like that suggestion,” replied Koree, “I will get Orlee and
keep you. Would you rather have Orlee than me?”

“I was not thinking of that, but only of Orlee.”

They had now approached near enough to see the girl distinctly, whom they
recognized to be Orlee. She had wandered so far from her keepers that
they did not observe the approaching lovers. Koree and Sosee concluded to
steal up to Orlee, and, without raising any suspicion, lead her in the
direction of the Swamp and then hurry with her into the bushes where they
could not be followed. As it was getting dark the time seemed propitious
for their scheme.

The couple in charge of Orlee, were, as will be surmised, Oboo, the ape
who had carried her off, and the woman Oola, in whose charge she had
been placed. This ape continued his attendance on this woman without
interruption, having, while the other Lali were amusing themselves in
groups, wandered off with her and the child to be alone. This accounts
for their distance from the rest of the Apes. They were so much absorbed,
moreover, with each other, that they did not notice that the child,
Orlee, had wandered away from them, and was now almost out of their
sight, and entirely out of their thoughts. Oboo and the woman simply
kept up their love-making, while Koree and Sosee were approaching their
prize. What made one pair of lovers forgetful made the other pair alert.
Love shuts and opens the eyes of mortals in turn, and lays off the
harness from one which it puts on another.

As soon as Orlee recognized her sister she gave a scream of joy which
disconcerted the plans of Sosee and Koree. It also startled Oboo and
the woman out of their bliss, who now experienced all the horrors of
interruption which the other two lovers had suffered the day before on
the appearance of the mammoth. Oboo felt most disappointed, and the woman
most frightened. They sprang up, and, for a minute, were bewildered,
thinking that some curious apes, perhaps rivals, had come suddenly upon
them, through jealousy or stupidity, to interrupt their _tète-a-tète_.
The woman instinctively sprang in the direction of the child, while Oboo
looked around to see who was the cause of the interruption. Soon they
both took in the situation and started in pursuit of the child.

Koree, perceiving that no time was to be lost, had picked up the child
and started for the Swamp, Sosee following at full speed. The child,
frightened by the bustle, set up a combined screaming and chattering,
which attracted the attention of the other Apes and called a large number
of them into the pursuit. The scene for a few minutes was like that of a
couple of foxes pursued by a pack of hounds, in which the foxes were fast
making for the woods.

CHAPTER XIII.

[Illustration]

All now depended on whether Koree and Sosee with the child could reach
the Swamp in time to conceal themselves before the Lali should arrive.
For so dense was the under-growth in the Swamp that it was next to
impossible to discover man or beast that should attempt to hide there.

Sosee could easily have gained the Swamp in time for safety, but Koree,
who was encumbered with the child, and so could not run as fast as she,
was in danger of capture by Oboo, who was fast gaining upon him. Sosee,
indeed, had already reached the Swamp, and was about to plunge into its
thickets and out of danger, when she turned to see if Koree and the child
were making their escape.

She was horrified to perceive that the pursuers were close upon them; and
so, instead of saving herself, she turned on them, and made a desperate
effort to rescue her companions. Before she could reach them, however,
Koree was overtaken by Oboo, when, releasing the child, he dealt Oboo a
powerful blow, which stunned him, and, at the same time, avenged the blow
received by Koree from the same ape some days before. Sosee now came up,
and, flying at the ape with screams and scratches, dealt him another blow
scarcely less severe than that administered by Koree. These two blows
compelled the ape to loose his hold for the moment.

[Illustration: THE RESCUE OF ORLEE.]

Released in this way from his pursuers, Koree picked up the child and
again started for the woods, while the ape, recovering from his blows,
again started in pursuit. He was gaining on Koree a second time, and
would have overtaken him again, had not the course of Koree and Sosee
now begun to diverge; for in their anxiety to escape neither had noticed
the direction taken by the other in their new start, and so they became
separated.

Oboo, observing the beauty and agility of Sosee, felt a desire to possess
her which outweighed his anxiety for the child. “She is prettier than the
old woman,” he said to himself, “and I will go for her.” Oboo always had
time, even in a fight or a race, to observe an attractive female, and
his head was invariably turned by the sight, no matter at what business
he was engaged. He accordingly turned from the pursuit of Koree and
Orlee, and started after the girl. The scratches and pounding which he
had received from her were no warning to him, but rather increased his
infatuation by testifying to her spirit. Love at first sight is greater
among Apes than among Men, and overcomes more obstacles. Accustomed to
fight for their females, and often to take them by overcoming them in
fight, the love of our primitive ancestors was often “love at first
fight.” Oboo, therefore, forgot his heroism in his passion, and,
abandoning all that he had set out to accomplish, started in pursuit of
his pleasure before he was yet out of his pain, and thought of enjoying
the caresses of a lover, while still smarting under her blows. The battle
of Mars thus turned into the battle of Cupid, and the warrior, turned
lover, continued the pursuit without much changing his method.

While Oboo was thus pursuing Sosee, Koree with the child in his arms had
reached the thicket, and was safe. Other apes came up, indeed, to the
edge of the swamp, and penetrated its depths; but, as it was getting
dark, they soon turned back, discontinuing the pursuit. While there were
many things to be found in the Swamp, their experience had taught them
that nothing was ever found there which was sought for. They might get
other apes or other game, but any particular thing that had escaped in
that tangled waste was deemed irretrievably lost.

In the mean time the pursuit of Sosee continued. Love added its
inspiration to that of prowess in the breast of her pursuer. Oboo ran for
both pleasure and glory. He must have the girl both because he wanted
her, and because he dared not return without her. Hence he ran as one
who had everything at stake; and so did she. Like Camilla, scouring the
plain, she put the Ape-land far behind her, while the distant forest
seemed, like Birnam Wood, to be fast approaching her.

Like the timid hare pursued by the hunter, which darts straight for the
shelter of the thick brush or dense cedars, her ears laid back upon her
shoulders, and her feet in the air, gliding with a billowy motion to a
place of safety, so the swift Sosee ran, measuring off the rapid miles
under her feet, while her panting warrior-lover, hotly pursuing, sought
to take her ere she should find a refuge in the dense groves beyond.

Sosee at last gained the swamp, and was secure from the determined Oboo,
who saw her disappear at once out of his sight and out of his hope. The
other apes, moreover, which had pursued from a distance, abandoned the
chase when they saw her enter the jungle, as a dog ceases to pursue a
bird which has flown into the air.

But while she thus escaped her pursuers, she did not so easily escape
those who awaited her. Scarcely had she entered the forest when she was
met by several apes who were returning from the pursuit of Koree. These,
seeing Sosee approach the forest, ran along its border (still keeping
behind the foliage), with a view of heading her off. These now sprang
suddenly upon her, and, after a short struggle, made her a prisoner.

CHAPTER XIV.

[Illustration]

Sosee was led back to the settlement of the Lali, where she was the
admiration of all the Apes. Her bright face, her beautiful form, and her
shapely limbs fixed the attention of old and young. Her captors were
particularly proud and received the congratulations of all the rest, who
had now returned from the pursuit of the fugitives.

Oboo alone was unhappy. He was disappointed, both because he did not
capture the girl, and because another did. One’s loss is greatest when it
is another’s gain. He had visions of love which he must now exchange for
those of jealousy. Quick to conceive a fancy he was slow to give it up.
Started on a pursuit of love, he was never satisfied till he had achieved
a success. And, to make his condition worse, the woman Oola, in whose
charge Orlee had been given, and to whom Oboo had been making love, flew
into a rage because he had allowed Orlee to escape.

“I am now wholly without a child,” she said; “you are no ape, to fail
to overtake a boy encumbered with a girl. You sought my love only to
betray me, and now I am without either lover or child; for with you I
will have nothing more to do. You care less for me than for the girl whom
you followed, instead of my child. If you ever make a soft face at me
again, I will scratch out your eyes. I have lost everything through your
unmonkey-like conduct.”

Oboo had not much to say, for he could not talk anything well except
love, and that he could not talk in company. So he took her reproaches,
but felt humiliated; and his embarrassment was increased by the raillery
of the others, who said he could love but could not run, and that in
the tussle with the girl, he had been beaten. They were so merry at his
expense, all the company joining in, that he got his “monkey up,” and,
becoming enraged, vented his ill humor on Ilo, the successful ape, who
had brought back Sosee.

“You could not have caught her,” he said, “if I had not driven her into
your arms.”

“You would never drive a girl into another’s arms, if you could avoid
it,” replied Ilo; at which the company chattered merrily their assent.

“I should have caught her,” he said “had you not interfered. She was
already mine, and you only took after her after she was captured.”

“I suppose,” replied the other, “you would like to have her, now that you
have lost the old woman.”

“I am entitled to her,” he said, “and I shall take her from you.”

“You could not keep her when you had her,” replied Ilo; “and do you
expect to both take her from me and keep her yourself?”

“You got her by chance, and could not help taking her when she ran into
your arms.”

“I notice, however, that you did not take her when she ran into your
arms,” was the reply.

“I will show you,” said Oboo, “that I can take her from both herself and
her captor;” at which he seized the girl, and was about to lead her away,
when the other dealt him a severe blow.

This was the signal for a great fight. Oboo sprang at the assailant,
striking him with hand and foot. The latter then flew at Oboo with both
hands, seizing him by the neck. There was now a hand to hand struggle,
in which Oboo tried to punch the stomach of his rival, while the latter
tried to throw Oboo to the ground. Oboo with his great jaws seized the
shoulder of Ilo, who, in turn, dealt Oboo a blow with the other hand,
and then bit off his ear. They now fought with both hands and feet and
jaws, and the region round about echoed with their growls. Oboo was
finally thrown to the ground, when the other jumped upon him, and nearly
beat out his breath. As often as he tried to rise the other knocked him
down, and sat upon him. The victory was evidently with Ilo, and Oboo
would have fared worse had not the woman, who really started the quarrel,
now interfered to end it. She took the part of her _quondam_ lover, for
whom she discovered a lingering affection, as soon as she saw that he
was likely to be slain. She growled and seized the victorious ape, and,
after a little struggle between the three, Oboo was allowed to get up and
walk away. Too weak to fight and too cross not to, he gave some savage
growls as he retreated, and threatened to whip his contestant and take
away the girl at another time.

Oboo felt that this was an inglorious day for him—to lose two lovers and
get one thrashing. He had, however, only himself to blame. He persisted
in making love when he should have been watching a captive. He failed
to catch either a young man or a young girl, and when the latter ran
into his arms, he failed to retain her, but got worsted in the struggle
which ensued; and when he finally would avenge his failures on a more
successful ape, he was ingloriously beaten. He therefore lost prestige,
military and social, for which he said all the Apes would have to suffer.
He was more angry after his fights than in them, so that his rage came
at a time when it could not serve him. Monkeys, like men, are more angry
at others for their own failures than for anything else, and so Oboo
determined to avenge his own blunders on others.

The only one who showed him any sympathy was the woman Oola, who got him
into all his trouble. She indicated a willingness to take him back into
favor. But Oboo was too cross to entertain proposals even of love, and he
went grumbling away, like Achilles, to meditate mischief and make himself
more miserable.

CHAPTER XV.

[Illustration]

Such was the wrath of Oboo, great monkey from beyond the Swamp, which,
kindled by defeated love, against all mortals, sent many souls of
heroes to the Shades, and gave their bodies a prey to beasts and birds.
Unappeased it flamed in wars unquenchable, and almost sent the human
race out of history, and gave back the earth to monkeys, snakes and
wide-spreading marshes.

Instigated by the woman who had lost her child, and who was for a second
time bereaved by the loss of its substitute, Oboo proposed the next day
that Sosee be given back to the Ammi, in exchange for the child first
captured. This was suggested, not because he cared for the child, but
because he desired to punish the ape who had got possession of Sosee. If
he could not himself have the girl, he did not want another to have her.
Such jealousy was in the minds of sub-mortals.

This the swift-footed Ilo, captor of Sosee, stoutly resisted. “If you
touch a hair of that maiden,” he said, “I will jump with both feet
against your belly and scratch out all monkeydom. To your licking of last
night I will add your death to-day. Hear me, O Shoozoo, if ever monkey
was so wronged as I, and help me to avenge myself upon this insolent
gusher, who has already made love to all the apes, and now wants my
little and dear prize, which alone is to comfort my home, and gather my
plantains in the far off forests of the uplands.”

And he walked along the shore of the loud-roaring frog pond.

In the meantime Koree, who had eluded his pursuers, was picking his way
through the Swamp, carrying Orlee in his arms and Sosee in his heart,
hoping that his beloved was likewise threading her way by another route
to the Ammi, where they would soon meet to enjoy perpetually their love.
This consummation, however, was not to be reached so soon; but many
adventures must first be encountered by both.

As he journeyed on he saw a great cloud spreading over the Swamp,
darkening the skies, so that he supposed that Night had suddenly settled
down upon Day. Great swarms of bats came out and filled the air with
their dull beatings, which added terror to the mystery.

Then followed a great rain, or flood from the skies, which, though
lasting but a few minutes, came in such torrents that trees were broken
in two and all the land submerged. Koree believed that the Sea had
suddenly come upon the Land with the Night, and that Death had come with
both to claim him and all things else.

The sun, however, soon came out, reviving his hope; but it came so hot,
that though it scarcely penetrated the thick foliage, which was matted
with tangled vines, it generated stifling gases, which, rising from the
damp shades, nearly strangled him; so that, having escaped death from the
water, he now expected it from the air.

Next came a great terror, and he expected to die from fright. There was a
desperate battle between a hippopotamus and an alligator which reddened
the yellow flood, and stirred it into a wilder foam than the great rain
had done. The alligator he believed to be the great Dragon of Shoozoo, or
Devil of the Watery World.

Soon the whole swamp was filled with animals. Called out by the
rain, some had come to feed, knowing that the waters, stirred by the
shower, would be alive with fish and reptiles, while others—great
land animals—had been disturbed in their lairs by the washout. Among
these last was a great three-toed tapir, which seemed to be lost; and,
following near it, came a more graceful animal, having a long tail and
two-toed feet, forming a kind of intermediate type between a hog and
a deer. These two animals were closely watched by a cave lion, which,
washed out of his cave by the flood, was approaching them stealthily in
hope of a meal. The sight was one of mingled fear and relief to Koree;
for if the lion had not his eye on some desirable game, he would have
attacked him. He awaited, therefore, with anxiety the next movements of
the beasts, expecting another fight like that between the hippopotamus
and the alligator, when a more dreadful sight alarmed both him and the
lion, as well as the game which the lion was pursuing, and started them
all in different directions.

[Illustration: THE BATTLE IN THE SWAMP.]

This was the appearance of a Dinotherium running at full speed, with
another animal on its back, both engaged in a fatal conflict. This
Dinotherium looked to Koree like a moving hill, so huge were his
dimensions. He was a combination of elephant, camel and kangaroo, having
a huge hunch on his back, powerful tusks issuing from his jaws, and a
pouch underneath, like our Marsupials. The beast on his back was what is
known to scientists as a Machairodus, a terrible, carnivorous, cat-like
creature, with long saber-shaped canines in its upper jaw, fitting it
to pull down and destroy the huge pachyderms (which could easily shake
off a lion or tiger.) This monster and this terror of the forest, which
together seemed like all the great animals rolled into one, were now
united in a death deal. While the cat-like beast was fastening its fangs
in the flesh of the other, the latter tried alternately to shake him off
and to roll over him. But the savage beast, with great skill, defeated
these attempts. The huge monster next tried to run under the horizontal
limb of a tree, which, though high, was yet too low to permit him to
pass under with his load. Koree thought that the beast on top would now
be scraped off; but not so. On approaching the limb he jumped over it,
like a circus-rider, and alighted on the running beast on the other side.
The two now darted on through the Swamp, and at last plunged into a deep
lake. The rider was thrown from his place, and, as he could not swim,
was drowned. The other, however, which was accustomed to navigate the
lakes of this region, and often entered even the open sea, swam across
the lake (a deep pool in the slough,) and there, after floating awhile,
like a ship unable to find a harbor, moored himself to the bank with his
tusks; and in this position Koree left him.

“Where can Sosee be during this flood?” soliloquized Koree, as he started
again on his way; “and will she escape the rage of all these beasts?”
He remembered, however, her agility in climbing trees, and her repeated
escapes from greater dangers; so that his fears were soon calmed in his
confidence, and the thought of meeting her again made him quickly forget
the great forces of nature and animals which he had just seen in their
struggles.

CHAPTER XVI.

[Illustration]

When Koree returned with his charge to the Ammi, these were engaged in
one of their sports, which consisted in throwing cocoanuts, and the rush
of all to get them, much as their descendants now play football. Some
of the younger ones amused themselves by racing up and down the trees
trying to catch one another, and occasionally shaking each other from
the branches. One little girl had caught a skunk which she was trying to
feed with figs, to the great disgust of the skunk. All had apparently
forgotten the absent ones; for the memory of our first ancestors was
short, not having yet been exercised on history.

“I told you to drop that skunk,” said an old woman, “and had you minded
me you would not now be sneezing and spitting so violently. Go down to
the spring and wash yourself.”

Just then a cocoanut flying through the air, struck the woman in the
eye, and for a moment she did not know whether it was the odor from the
skunk, or a ball from the players that knocked her down.

“I told you to be careful with your cocoanuts,” she said, “and had you
minded me you would not get this shaking;” at which she seized the
nearest player by the hair and administered several pulls and scratches.

Finally Koree made his appearance, leading Orlee by the hand. His first
anxiety was to know whether Sosee had returned, whom he was alarmed not
to see among the players. The mother of Orlee ran franticly to receive
her child, which she fondled with an incoherent chattering.

“Where is Sosee?” asked Koree.

“Where is Sosee?” asked the mother at the same time.

Both looked at each other in amazement, and no words were needed to
express their mutual disappointment.

“Have you restored to me one child only to lose another?” asked the
mother reproachfully.

“Have I lost a lover,” replied Koree, “only to rescue a baby?”

Both, forgetful of what they had, were about to quarrel over what they
had not. Koree, however, was the more inconsolable, because he had lost
all that he went for, which he had, indeed, before starting, and went
to retain rather than to acquire. For he went for Sosee rather than for
Orlee, seeking the latter only that he might not lose the former.

“Wait,” said Gimbo, the grandfather of Sosee, “and she may yet return.
She is doubtless in the swamp detained by some attraction or difficulty.”

“Sosee, unincumbered and swift of foot,” replied Koree, “would not
be longer in returning than I with the child. She has either been
re-captured by the Lali, or else met with a disaster in the swamp.
Perhaps the lion I saw chasing the tapirs devoured her;” and he grieved
like Pyramus mourning for Thisbe.

Little did he think that at that moment she was the cause of a quarrel
between Oboo and Ilo in the far off land of the Lali. The mother was less
concerned, both because she was in the first joys of receiving a restored
child, and because, in addition to the uncertainty as to whether Sosee
would not return, it was not customary for our ancestors of that day
to concern themselves about their grown children. When their offspring
had passed the disabilities of infancy, they were allowed to shift for
themselves. Orlee, being still a child, was, therefore, dearer to the
mother than Sosee; and so, measurably content with the former, she was
willing to trust the other to her lover or herself.

When Koree, however, became satisfied that Sosee was lost, he resolved
to find her; and, as his fears early persuaded him that she was lost
(since fear acts faster in the absence and confidence in the presence of
lovers,) he resolved at once to get up an expedition for her recapture.

To set all doubt at rest about her whereabouts, some neutral monkeys, who
had recently visited the Lali in a migration southward, now came to the
Ammi. They informed the latter that the chief talk among the Lali was
about the capture of a beautiful girl, and the quarrel of two apes over
her possession. They said also that they heard it intimated among the
Lali, that as the girls of the Ammi were more beautiful than those of the
Lali, they had a project to capture more of them.

Armed with this information and these threats, Koree now went about to
rouse the infant race of men to arms. Rumor went before him, and that
which had been a hint soon became an assertion. Horrid tales of captured
maidens filled the imaginations of Cocoanut Hill. The young women were
especially interested, some hoping they would escape capture, and others
that they would not. The old men and women were indifferent, especially
as babies were not to be captured. But the young men were easily aroused,
especially those who had lovers, and they determined to defend their own.

A league was, therefore, entered into by the young men of the Ammi, which
the older men soon after joined, to proceed, like the united princes of
Greece, to recapture the stolen maiden and restore her to this earlier
Menelaus. Another and older siege of Troy was thus planned, which, like
many battles greater than Homer’s, was lost to history, and can now be
restored only by meager relics saved from the past.

Let us then proceed, Homer-like, to build up the history of this war,
as the mammoth has been rebuilt by putting together here and there a
bone, and as Roman history has been constructed by inspecting coins and
broken statues. Greater battles are lost than any that are retained in
history. The greatest throes of earth and of its inhabitants have escaped
even tradition, and are now to be exhumed only from the forgotten.
We dig up history as we do potatoes, and wonder that so much activity
has been buried. History is now built from this end, and long periods
of forgetfulness are being reclaimed. Like the bridges which span the
Mississippi, we throw up great highways across prehistoric periods, and
prospect in times and lands beyond the known.

CHAPTER XVII.

[Illustration]

Busy now were the preparations for dire war. Not that troops were to be
armed, or supplies collected for a long campaign. No vessels were to be
fitted out to cross the Swamp, or ambulances prepared for the wounded.
No loans were to be negotiated or preliminaries of diplomacy settled.
The early men were always ready for war, in fact were always at war. One
of the first advances of mankind was made when wars were separated from
peace, and men observed the difference. As yet war was the natural state,
and never had to be declared. Whenever a man met an ape, or even a wild
beast, the signal was given for a fight. The race had not yet learned
peace, which had to be learned before war, the arts of peace being all of
later development. Men had fists before they had plows, and took their
food before they produced it.

But the Ammi were, nevertheless, busy with preparations for war. Those
are often busiest who have least to do. The excitement made them active,
and they rushed about impatient to begin the fray. They had not yet
learned to wait, or to take time for things. To resolve was, as yet, to
commence. Unaccustomed to those great achievements which require time for
preparation, they would enter into a long war as quickly as into a single
battle. Had they found their enemy they would have fought that day. The
battle generally comes too late for savages, the impulse for war being
expended before the fight begins.

Still a few things had to be prepared. While they expected to get their
rations from the Swamp, and to rely on some stone heap for weapons, they
remembered that in the few years of their separate life as Men they had
accumulated some wealth. This it was thought best to protect. They had
large quantities of cocoanuts and other fruits in their dens; they had
made some valuable instruments of stones and shells; their dug-outs
themselves were worth much to them, and would likely be destroyed in
their absence; for all which reasons some of the older men opposed the
project of war; for wealth is always a promoter of peace.

“It is better to keep our caves and cocoanuts,” said Oko, a stingy
fellow, “then to get back a girl.”

Their very position in the Cocoanut Hill region was deemed valuable on
account of its abundant fruits and its nearness to the Swamp with its
game. They found it advisable, therefore, to protect their homes and
country, and for that purpose determined to leave some at home. They
learned also that some of their implements might be used in war, or
rather recalled the fact, since they were first invented for purposes
of war; and it took some time to select what they wanted and to provide
for its transportation. Some, not accustomed to hunt, or not liking the
products of the Swamp, concluded to take with them the sweetest nuts
and juiciest fruits of the Cocoanut Hill region, while others were busy
determining the best route to the other side of the Swamp.

These things required activity, and men and women were accordingly busy
preparing for war. For the warriors were not confined to men. There were
amazons before there were belles. Woman’s equality in public affairs
was recognized before her inferiority, and equal rights were as yet the
law of the race. Instead of leaving the women behind to protect their
homes, they concluded to leave the old and the children behind, while
the able-bodied of both sexes were all to go to the field. Oko, the
stingy fellow just mentioned, proposed to kill off the non-combatants, as
they would eat all the cocoanuts before the warriors should return, and
perhaps not let the latter again have possession of their homes.

“You greedy ape,” replied one to this suggestion, “you have not yourself
gathered all the fruit you now have; you took some from others’ dens.
I saw in your hole a wedge which I made for myself, and a marrow bone
sharpened by a woman. You would now like to kill them lest they get back
what you stole from them.”

At this the avaricious ape, Oko, threw a cocoanut shell at the speaker,
but took care that it was an empty one, for he was so economical, since
he had begun the collection of nuts, that he never wasted anything.

The other threw back a filled cocoanut at him, and knocked him down. His
generosity in using a whole nut served him a good turn, for liberality
is necessary in war, where one may be too stingy even to fight, and lose
a battle because he begrudges the price of the weapon. Oko picked up the
cocoanut, and—kept it. The Ammi now expected a desperate struggle between
the two men; but, one being satisfied with his victory and the other with
his gain, they parted, one going off with an air of triumph, and the
other with a cocoanut.

Other disputes arose over various details in the conduct of the war, but
none broke out into violence.

“Whose girl will Sosee be if we get her back?” asked one.

“Mine!” replied Koree, defiantly.

“Are we all to fight, and only one to get the advantage of it?” asked
another.

“You must fight,” retorted Koree, “or you will lose all you have. The
restoration of my girl means the protection of yours.”

“If I capture her,” replied a third, “neither Koree nor any one else will
get her. A girl, like a cocoanut, belongs to whomsoever gets her.”

“Whoever gets her,” replied Koree, “will get a broken head if he does not
restore her to me.”

It was now feared that this altercation would lead to a civil war before
the foreign war should commence; when the thoughts of the company were
turned by the suggestion of Oko, the stingy fellow mentioned, that the
Lali had doubtless acquired some possessions, so that they would all
return laden with the spoils of war.

“If it were not so,” he added, “I would not fight at all.”

“Perhaps,” suggested one of the young men, “there are also some
pretty apes among them, so that instead of one girl we may bring back
many—enough for all.”

“Sosee must be recovered first,” said Koree, “when I will help you to
catch all the rest.”

Some, however, could not be made to understand what the war was for.

“I can see no cocoanuts in it,” said one.

“I don’t want my eyes scratched out,” added another, who had lately
become interested in a girl who was sitting beside him; “nor do I want
her injured.”

“Who knows,” asked a third, “if we shall ever meet again? I fear we shall
lose this place and lose one another.”

“Why did Koree lose his girl?” asked another. “He should not have taken
her into danger.”

“Men and warriors!” interposed Koree at this point, fearing an
insubordination that might be disastrous, “is this your resolution? A
little while ago you were impatient for battle. Now you are seeking
excuses for peace. None of you are worthy of such honor as awaits us.
The defeat of the Lali will give glory to the Ammi, and many women and
stores. We will divide their country among us, or, at least, have no more
trouble from them. You fight not for me only but for yourselves, and
fight that you may have to fight no more. For, this war will destroy
all our enemies. Now swear to me not only that you will go to the war
(for that you have already done), but that you will never abandon it till
Sosee is restored.”

This they all swore by scratching their ribs, and again there was harmony
in the counsels of war.

CHAPTER XVIII.

[Illustration]

The war being resolved upon, preparations now went on, and consumed so
much time that many again lost interest. They grew impatient, first at
the preparations, and then at the expected war itself, and so had to be
repeatedly stirred up by new infusions of resolution. Koree superintended
the preparations, whose chief work was to keep the minds of the people
prepared; for our early ancestors could not hold a resolution as long as
we. Their anger was soon cool, like their love, and their attention went
rapidly from one subject to another.

“Hollow out some water-melons,” said Koree, “in which to carry our
weapons.”

The Ammi had used melon rinds for vessels, when they wanted something
larger than a cocoanut shell. These lasted, indeed, but a short time, but
they were easily replaced.

“Water-melons are too heavy,” said one, “and will spoil before we reach
the enemy. Let us use bark which can be tied at the ends and hung over
our shoulders.”

Some, accordingly, took bark, but many preferred melons or gourds,
which, however, they exchanged for bark before proceeding far. It takes
experience to learn what is best for war or peace.

“Sharpen your clubs,” said Koree, “but only at one end. Let the other end
be blunt, so as to serve for a staff in marching and a weapon in battle.”

They accordingly sharpened their clubs, which served as spears, and also
aided them in digging for roots, clams and other provisions.

They also provided split bones and broken cocoanut shells, which were
sharp, and so served both as weapons to cut and implements to dig.

Some thought of still other things which might be useful in war, and
filled their bark knapsacks with so much that, when they were ready to
start they were so hopelessly overloaded that they could scarcely move.
But they gained experience on the way, and soon learned what to leave
as well as what to take, thus acquiring early the soldier’s virtue of
learning to throw away.

The greedy fellow Oko, already mentioned, wanted them to carry all their
stores with them, and he tried to get others to help carry his.

“We helped you gather those stores,” said one, “and will not serve you
again by carrying them after you have taken them from us.”

“I did not take them by force,” he answered.

“No,” replied the first, “because you would not fight; but you stole
them, or persuaded us to give them to you.”

“I always gave you something in exchange.”

“True, but it was in each case something worth less.”

Oko was the first man that had learned to cheat, his avariciousness being
distorted into dishonesty which easily deceived them, since men, though
they early learned to resist force, were slow to withstand guile.

Being unable to get help in carrying his stores he concluded to stay at
home to watch them, when the thought of getting greater stores from the
Lali again changed his mind; and his voice was now for war.

The preparations thus went on, and all seemed propitious for a successful
campaign, when suddenly a tremendous shock was felt. A mountain range in
the distance rose to the sky, forming a ridge of the Alps. A roar such
as has not since visited the earth reverberated through the country,
shaking the air as violently as the first shock shook the earth. The
world rocked to and fro like a vessel at sea, tumbling every man to the
earth, and rolling him over the ground. It was impossible to stand, or
even to lie still. The whole human race became sea sick, and all were, in
addition, more frightened than sick. Down came the dug-outs with their
contents over the heads of the Ammi, and men and provisions were rolled
promiscuously over the ground. Fruits and nuts fell from the trees, and
many trees fell with them. There seemed to be no safety for anything on
the earth, or even for the earth itself. The land appeared to be going,
and all looked for a general collapse.

[Illustration: THE CATASTROPHE.]

To add to the disaster the Swamp overflowed, and its waters rushed over
the settlement of the Ammi, overwhelming everything except the huts that
stood on high ground. Several of the men, and many of the women and
children, who had escaped being scared to death, were finally drowned;
while reptiles and wild beasts again overran the region of the Ammi. All
Alligator Swamp seemed emptied upon Cocoanut Hill, and the infant race
looked to see their country, like Holland, sink out of sight.

The return of the waves was scarcely less disastrous than their advance.
As the earth settled again, and the flood came down from the hills, it
swept away much that the advance had left. The earth for a long time
swayed back and forth, the waters rushing alternately in each direction.
Many of the Ammi escaped only by running into the trees, some of whom
even then were shaken down into the water. To add to the terror the sky
became dark, the sun being entirely hid by the thick clouds of dust and
smoke which issued from the crevices of the earth. Noises were repeatedly
heard as of great explosions, and, following every rest from the rocking
of the earth, was a shaking up by intermittent convulsions. The birds
did not find even the air still enough for flight, but many fell to the
ground (or water) killed by the concussion. None knew when the next burst
would occur, but all looked for their death, uncertain only whether it
would come by fire, water, or engulfment. Thunder seemed to come from
both the earth and sky, and lightnings flashed out from the rents of the
earth as well as of the clouds. The world at times appeared to be on
fire, and it looked as if it would be burned up in case it should escape
all the other means of destruction. The sun, the moon, and the stars
seemed all to be destroyed, and no human being looked again for light
except from the fire of the destruction of all things. Death was expected
to follow this disaster, in which men and animals alike were to take part.

In the midst of this despair, however, hope arose with the stillness that
came as sudden as had the commotion. The earth seemed again to stand. The
thunderings became quiet; the waters rushed back to their places; light
began to appear through the smoke, and in time the sun was seen to be in
his place. The distant mountain ranges again appeared in sight, but much
changed. Some peaks were gone, or lay in heaps about the ranges, while
new ridges arose where the plain had before stretched. A new earth seemed
to greet the sky; the old horizon was gone, and a new sky-line along the
mountains added grandeur as well as novelty to the changed scene.

For a moment the impression prevailed that the earth was not permanent,
but changeable like the sea, the forest, and the men. The globe was at
this time passing through a crisis as decisive as that of the human race,
preparing for our present physical geography as well as our present
society; and we may be excused for turning aside, for a moment, from
the convulsions of the human mind in its preparations for war, to the
physical convulsions of Nature in preparing the earth itself for its
future uses.

CHAPTER XIX.

[Illustration]

The smoke, the noise, the fire and the water having cleared away, the
Ammi were now discussing the earthquake. They had forgot their war
preparations in the presence of a greater enemy than the Lali. They had
to make peace with the World. What had happened? Will it occur again?
These were among the questions they asked.

“I do not see that we made much by coming down from the trees,” said one.
“The earth is just as unstable as the trees, and shakes as much as they.
I should have been thrown off many times had there been any place to fall
to.”

“Had we kept to the trees,” observed another, “we should have had more
experience in holding on. I got thrown down and rolled about, because I
had nothing to hold to. When the ground rocks it is more violent than a
palm or a pine.”

“It all comes,” said Gimbo, the grandfather of Sosee, “from walking
upright. If the Apes had kept on all fours, they would not have been
thrown to the ground. Nobody can stand on his hind legs alone, in such a
shaking. While the rest of you tumbled I remained on my four feet. Men
need to walk solidly, and nothing gives a firmer foundation than four
feet. No elephant is fool enough to walk on two; and men, by keeping two
of their feet in the air, are always falling. It was a great mistake to
get up from the ground. Other animals have not done it. Men were made to
go on all fours. Everything they want is on the ground, and they can see
it better when looking down than when looking up. Their eyes are thus
nearer what they are hunting, and they are not in danger of stumbling
when they are looking at their feet.”

Another thought that the horror occurred because they were too
irreligious. They had been neglecting their ceremonies, and there
was general doubt about the traditions of Shoozoo. “It is a divine
visitation,” he said, and he was in favor of sacrificing something.

Another said: “It was the voice of the great winged Alligator, with which
Shoozoo fought. Chained under the Swamp this beast shook himself, which
caused the waters to flow over these regions. The fire and smoke which he
blew from his mouth, caused all the damage. He swallowed up the sun and
stars for awhile, and the mountains which he carried off he has not yet
returned. I think we should propitiate him, or he will come again.”

[Illustration: THE FIGHT WITH THE FIRE MONSTER.]

The fire, which some had never before seen, or only vaguely observed in
the lightning or a distant volcano, proved the greatest terror of all,
as it was the greatest mystery. They saw it creeping through the grass,
destroying scattered pieces of wood, as well as flaming in various
parts of the forest. They thought it was a great serpent, and tried to
kill it by throwing clubs at it, which it in turn devoured; when they
declared that it was a monster that fed on wood, and ate whole forests.
Some thought that it was the sun that had broken loose from the sky, and
fallen in pieces to the earth; because, in addition to its light, they
felt its heat. All were inclined to worship it as a divinity, some saying
that it was Shoozoo himself.

“It is some kind of snake,” said one, “and I never yet saw a snake that I
could not strangle;” whereat he seized a burning brand, which he took to
be the body of the serpent, and tried to squeeze it to death. He dropped
it quickly, however, with a loud scream, saying that it had bit him. He
then jumped on the fire, thinking to crush the monster, when the sparks
flew up in great numbers, frightening all who were present, and igniting
the hair of the assailant, who was soon rushing about in flames.

“There is a fight between him and the monster,” said one; “let us see
which will whip.”

The man was soon burned to death and his body nearly consumed, at which
great terror seized the rest.

They called the monster the Sun-serpent, and for a long time, whenever
fire appeared, they avoided it, or prayed to it, to avert its wrath. When
it lightened they were afraid, and prayed that it would remain in the
sky, and not come to the earth. They regarded the thunder as its voice;
and when it struck a tree or destroyed a forest, they said it had come
down to take a meal. In time, as they got more familiar with it, they
took to feeding it with wood, to appease its hunger, and prevent it from
devouring them or their possessions. When it went out, they thought it
had crawled into the earth, like any other snake, and rarely was anybody
bold enough to try to dig it out, or even to approach its hole. When
they saw it flying through the air, as in lightning or a falling star,
they predicted some great calamity, and were exceptionally religious.
They pointed to the many thunder storms and to the damage done by the
lightning and rain as evidence of all this; for these disturbances were
all more frequent and violent in the Tertiary Age than at any subsequent
time, the air being never for a long time either clear or silent.

There was, in short, so much that the early race did not understand, that
they were perpetually in awe. Every convulsion of nature was a subject of
worship to them. They thought it was alive, or produced by some living
monster, and they feared its wrath and tried to appease it. Earth-quakes
soon got a name, and were placed among the divinities. Thunder,
Lightning, Rain, Hail, and subsequently Snow were canonized as heavenly
spirits. The wind was the breath of Shoozoo, or of his great Alligator.
Sunshine came to be the smile of the Great Serpent, when he was in good
humor. The air came soon to be as full of monsters as the earth, and
men’s imagination saw more than their eyes. A spirit world had dawned
upon them, and the supernatural began to rule the race. All the unknown
was fashioned into gods, and the realm of ignorance became one of terror
and devotion.

“It all comes,” persisted Gimbo, “from looking up. If people only walked
on their four feet they would not see the sky and its fires. I never see
anything that is high, and so am not made afraid. The cure for all these
evils is to return to all fours, when you won’t see anything that is so
far off that it does not concern you.”

“But you see more snakes, and are more frightened by them than we,”
retorted one.

“Snakes must be seen before you have to do with them,” replied Gimbo; “if
they see you first you don’t come off so well. By keeping my eyes on the
ground, I see them before they harm me, and soon they are out of the way,
or I am. When your first acquaintance with a snake is made by tramping
on him, there is a disagreeable surprise and a dangerous controversy.
But it is not so with the Sun-serpent or the Alligator of Shoozoo, which
you are always seeing and which never comes near; so that you are always
frightened when there is no danger.”

A long religious controversy then ensued, which turned mainly on whether
men should keep to the ways and traditions of their fathers, and walk,
like them, on all fours, or whether they should stand up and look ahead.
The latter course was thought to unsettle their faith and make them
introduce new gods, if not to abandon entirely their religion. Gimbo
thought there were swamp snakes enough to engage men’s attention,
without troubling themselves about snakes in the air. “Shoozoo’s
Alligator,” he said, “is a literal swamp reptile, and that is enough to
worship. By introducing new snakes into our theology, you will confuse
all our religion.”

Others, however, were not as conservative as Gimbo, but believed in
acknowledging snakes wherever they found them. Religion is naturally
progressive, they thought, and advancement in religion at this time was
believed to consist in adding more snakes to theology.

While, therefore, Gimbo represented the Unitarians, or Mono-snakists,
who claimed that there was only one great snake god—the Alligator of
Shoozoo—there was a polytheistic, or poly-snake, party, which insisted on
a many-snaked Pantheon, and particularly on a belief in the sun-snake and
the wood-eating snake, which were thought by many to be one and the same;
while still others thought that these, with the Alligator of Shoozoo,
formed together a trinity of snakes which were in substance all one, but
manifested themselves under the three forms of Sun-light, Wood-fire and
Alligator.

CHAPTER XX.

[Illustration]

There had up to this time been many sects in the religion of the Ammi.
They all agreed simply in recognizing Shoozoo as its founder, and his
fight with the Alligator as the great transaction on which it rested.
There was early, however, a schism in the main body. One class had
drifted away from the worship of Shoozoo to the worship of his Alligator,
and in time they claimed that the Alligator was the god, instead of
Shoozoo. This came from their habit of using the alligator, or figures
representing it, as symbols of the Shoozoo religion, whereby the symbol
became in time more important than the thing symbolized. There were,
accordingly, in the Shoozoo religion, the pure Shoozoo party and the
Alligator party, and for nearly a generation a fierce controversy raged
between the two, resulting often in bloodshed.

The Alligator party, however, triumphed in the end, and many of the pure
Shoozooists were exiled, and have since lived among the Lali and other
apes, where they have continued to worship Shoozoo without any mixture
of the Alligator, and have converted back some of the Apes to their faith.

In time, however, the Alligator party came to be divided among
themselves, as the outgrowth of the same spirit. They accustomed
themselves to use, as the symbol of the Alligator, a dragon-fly (for the
alligator vanquished by Shoozoo was admitted to be a flying alligator
which somewhat resembled a dragon-fly), and by many the dragon-fly came
at length to be taken for the Alligator and to be worshipped as such.
A fight accordingly arose between the pure Alligator party and the
dragon-fly party that waxed more bitter than the original fight between
the Alligator party and the Shoozoo party. The dragon-fly party were in
the end victorious, and the Alligator party were slain or banished as
heretics, just as the pure Shoozoo party had been.

There was soon after this a like division among the successful Dragon-fly
party, and from a like cause. The people, finding it difficult to draw a
dragon-fly, represented it by a cross, or two lines drawn transversely,
the longer one representing the body of the fly, and the shorter one
its wings. This symbol, which was soon seen on all the utensils of the
Ammi, and frequently carved on trees and rocks, especially during the
controversy with the Alligator party, came at length to be taken for
the dragon-fly, and worshipped in its stead. This abuse was deplored
by some of the Ammi, who tried to recall the people to the worship of
the dragon-fly itself, and not its symbol. Others, however, had become
attached to the cross, and soon there was a violent controversy between
the dragon-fly party and the cross party, and the dragon-fly party fought
the cross party more than they had both together fought the Alligator
party. The cross party were successful, however, and the dragon-fly party
were compelled to keep quiet; for by this time they had learned the first
rudiments of religious tolerance, and stopped killing and banishing the
dissenters, provided only that they would not preach their doctrines in
public, or attempt to disturb the established faith.

Soon, however, the cross party was rent with dissensions, one class
insisting on worshiping the long beam of the cross, and the other
the short beam; and there was soon the long-beam cross party and the
short-beam cross party in the church, and the long-beam party fought
the short-beam party more than the whole cross party had before fought
the dragon-fly party. The short-beam party insisted at last on making
the short beam as long as the long beam, forming something like a Greek
Cross, which finally came to be their symbol, while the long-beam party
came in time to omit the short beam altogether and use only a one-beam
cross; and they took as their symbol a straight line.

The short-beam cross party, however, were successful, and they greatly
persecuted the long-beam party, though with less severity than their
predecessors had done, because the spirit of religious liberty was always
in the ascendant.

The short-beam cross party, however, soon broke up into other sects owing
to disputes about the nature and form of the short-beam cross, which
gave the long-beam cross party (which had at length become the one-beam
cross party) an opportunity to urge its claims, and there was a reaction
among the short-beam cross party in favor of the long-beam cross party,
which gained many converts, and at one time threatened the disruption of
the short-beam cross party; and it would doubtless have accomplished this
but for a great reformation which now swept over the religious world of
the Ammi.

This was a movement in favor of restoring the primitive religion of
Shoozoo, or the worship of the Alligator. It was led by one Lookoo,
who was afterwards known as the Great Reformer. With a fiery zeal and
vigorous eloquence he called the attention of the Ammi to the fact
they had got away entirely from their original faith, which was in the
Alligator, and, instead, were worshipping short crosses and long crosses.

“Neither short crosses nor long crosses,” said he, “are anything, but
only alligators. Not even a dragon-fly will avail you, but only the
original Alligator of Shoozoo, who occupies the Swamp and flies through
the air. He gives us warmth in the sun, and comes to the earth in
lightning to punish his enemies. He is the Lord of the Ammi, and will put
to flight the Lali and all monkeys beyond the Swamp. He led our fathers
out from the Apes, gave us Cocoanut Hill, taught us to make darts and
wedges, and led us to build houses. Our gathered fruits are due to his
guidance, and by his jaws the reptiles of the great forest are kept
in fear. Return, then, to your allegiance to the great Alligator, the
companion of Shoozoo and equal deity with him.”

Lookoo gained many adherents, not only because it was evident to all the
Ammi that they had departed from their god for his successive symbols,
but because the priests of the short-beam cross religion had established
the custom of drinking all the milk in the Cocoanut, which they had
taught the rest of the Ammi that it was sacrilege for anybody to drink
but the priests. The reformation, accordingly, gained headway out of a
desire on the part of the common people to get some of this milk, as well
as out of a change in theological convictions. There was a general demand
for reform, and some of the worst, as well as some of the best men, were
active in the movement. The priests made the principal opposition to it,
although a few of them, in the hope of preferment, or because they had a
grievance against the other priests, joined the new movement and became
its leaders.

The reformation was generally successful. Some, however, refused to be
led away by it, but became more devoted than ever to the short-beam cross
worship, and cultivated such a devotion for the short-beam cross as had
never been known. They were commonly known as the clerical or priestly
party, and constituted the conservatives until the time of the great
earthquake just mentioned. They insisted on retaining all that their
ancestors had handed down to them, the very fact that it had come from
antiquity being evidence of its truth; while the Reformers claimed the
right of going back to original sources and re-establishing themselves on
the truth of the great Alligator.

The tendency to skepticism and the introduction of new gods, deplored by
Lookoo, as well as the explanation of the Alligator and other theological
truths as phenomena of nature—fire, earthquake, wind, etc.—has generally
been found among the Reformers, who early tried to explain all religion
away, or else resolve it into natural causes and effects.

CHAPTER XXI.

[Illustration]

Among the Lali the religion of Shoozoo was preserved in greater purity.
There had not been such a great departure from Shoozoo himself, as among
the Ammi, where he was entirely lost in his symbols. Neither had there
been so many splits and reformations. The Apes preserved the unity of the
church better than the Men.

Instead, however, of losing Shoozoo in the Alligator, like the Ammi, and
then losing the Alligator in the dragon-fly, and the dragon-fly in the
cross, and the cross in the short beam of the cross, the Lali went to
the opposite extreme of deifying and worshiping not only Shoozoo, but
everything connected with him. Before one generation had passed Shoozoo’s
wife, Simlee, was admitted to equal divinity with him, and it was known
as the Shoozoo-Simlee religion. There was thus a male and female deity,
or king and queen of heaven. Soon after this Shoozoo’s parents and
children were likewise added to the divine family, and worshiped by the
Apes. Next came the dart with which Shoozoo struck the moon, and finally
the moon itself.

Everything was deemed sacred with which Shoozoo had to do, except the
Alligator, which the Apes persistently refused to worship, because the
Ammi had taken it up. They claimed, instead, that Shoozoo had killed
the alligator in order to take the swallowed moon out of it. Many
relics of the dead alligator, indeed, were furnished, and kept as a
perpetual testimony to the achievements of Shoozoo, and as a rebuke to
the unbelieving Ammi, who dared to worship it. These relics were worn as
charms, and many cures were alleged to have been effected by them. Among
others the gallant Oboo had been cured of a violent disease. The Swamp in
which the Alligator was killed was deemed sacred, and in their devotions
the Lali turned their faces to it. Water from this Swamp was likewise
deemed sacred, and was always kept on the altars of the Apes, and great
devotion was paid to it when exposed to the sight of the worshippers.
Forty apes were once killed for sacrilege committed by spilling water,
most of them for being mere witnesses of the outrage. A drop of Swamp
water was put on every Ape’s head when he was born, and the ceremony was
often repeated through life. This water was used in the consecration of
their priests, and its application once turned the scales of war. Its
appearance was consulted for omens, and it was invoked by monkeys when
about to go after fruits. Bad luck was attributed to certain disturbances
of it. Water-songs were the first specimens of music known to the Apes,
and were always sung at exhibitions of water taken from the Swamp. The
finest gourds and cocoanut vessels were made to hold this water, and
the decoration of these was the first step taken in Sacred Art. Among
the first pictures sketched were crude representations of a stream.
They called their children after this water, such being the meaning of
the common names among them. “Ilo” signifies “touched with water,” and
“Oboo” means “Soaked.” Rainy days were deemed more sacred than clear
ones, on account of their water, whose descent from the skies was taken
as influences from Shoozoo. A flood was regarded as this god coming in
disguise; and to be drowned was to be lost in Shoozoo. The Lali washed
oftener than the Ammi, not for cleanliness, but on account of their
devotion to water; and they would not kill a snake that was still wet.
As long as anything, indeed, had upon it water from the great Swamp, it
was supposed to be under the protection of Shoozoo. The Apes drank water
before eating, and the last thing they did when dying was to drink. To be
deprived of water for certain rites was the most serious affliction that
could happen to an Ape, and a rebellion once broke out among the Lali
because, when on a long march, their leader would not go out of the way
to find a stream for ceremonial purposes.

But the refinements of ritual among the Lali were not confined to water,
although at the time of which we speak the water rites had attained
their greatest ascendancy. The Apes were accustomed to make pilgrimages
to Cocoanut Hill where Shoozoo performed his great exploits, which was
regarded as Holy Ground, and there they often worshipped. It was the
interference of the Ammi with these privileges that led to the quarrels
between the Apes and the Men, of which we have spoken. The Ammi, however,
claimed that the Apes came not for religious purposes, but to steal
cocoanuts, and hence the reprisals already mentioned.

One of the rules of the Lali religion was to kill screech owls when the
moon was quarter full, because it was at this period that Shoozoo had
killed the owls of Cocoanut Hill, and all owl hunts were in commemoration
of his great exploit. Another was to hide their darts for six days
after this festival, because during this time Shoozoo rested from his
hunt and needed no more owls. Another observance was to present snakes
to one another at a certain period in honor of the great serpent which
Shoozoo killed and presented to Simlee. For days before this festival
the young monkeys were kept busy hunting snakes in the great Swamp.
Another requirement was that on the day before Owl-hunt the Lali should
walk upright as a preparation for the great festival, since on this day
Shoozoo walked upright to aim at the moon. They were forbidden to take
fish from the great Swamp on Snake Day, though they might then take them
from other waters. No monkey must kill another during these festivals,
as this right was reserved to the priests alone, who must, however, use
their victims only in sacrifice.

Departure from these rules was punished by being plunged in the Great
Swamp to wash away the guilt. The sinner was kept under as long as the
celebrant deemed fit; and if he survived he was said to be reconciled
to Shoozoo, and if not he was deemed incapable of purification and
deservedly dead. There were other penalties for small offenders. Most
of the offences among the Lali were religious violations, and the
punishment was in the hands of the priests, which had much to do with the
preservation of the unity of religion. Sin was recognized before wrong,
nonconformity before crime, and ecclesiastical penalties before civil.
Frequent attempts were made to throw off the tyranny of the priesthood,
but the leaders of the revolt were quickly apprehended, and usually put
to death with great tortures. Heresies were not infrequent among the
Apes, who soon learned, however, that it was not policy to make them
known. In general there was a remarkable unanimity among them—a greater
degree than has since been known in religious affairs.

Among the maxims of the Lali, which were also current among the Ammi,
(for, notwithstanding their religious differences, their morality was
substantially the same), were the following:

Keep your snout in your own cocoanut.

Never bite off an ear in sport.

Stick to the tree you are climbing.

Don’t fight over what you don’t want.

Save what you can’t eat, remembering that you must eat again.

Don’t crack your cocoanuts on each other’s heads.

Half the time spent in washing that you spend in scratching would keep
you more comfortable.

Don’t man the Ammi, (which among the Ammi reads, “Don’t ape the Lali.”)

Get up a tree rather than dispute the ground with a tiger.

If you don’t pick your neighbor’s fleas you will be bit by your own fleas.

After this digression on the religion and morality of the Lali, we will
return to the affairs of the Ammi.

CHAPTER XXII.

[Illustration]

Having repaired the damage of the earthquake and flood, the Ammi set out
on their march to the country of the Lali, having, first, however, armed
themselves with the light weapons and provisions already mentioned. The
expedition was led by Koree, who labored hard to remove every obstacle,
and he set an example of endurance, as well as infused courage in the
irresolute.

“We start out for Sosee and glory,” he said. “The time will come when we
will delight to recall the difficulties which now trouble us.”

They marched more around the Swamp than through it, keeping, however,
near its borders. This was a longer route, but fraught with less danger
and difficulty. At night they retired to the Swamp, lest they should be
surprised by the Lali, and when they became hungry they scattered to
collect food, of which there was great abundance. The earthquake shock
and the floods had shaken the fruits and nuts from the trees, where they
could now readily be gathered.

Oko, the greedy fellow mentioned, suggested that they collect stores for
the whole campaign, and take them along, since they might not find fruits
so abundant as they proceeded. “There is plenty in the Swamp,” replied
Koree, who had recently passed that way. “The whole region between the
Ammi and the Tali abounds with things to eat. Let us not, therefore,
burden ourselves with what we may gather as we need it.”

[Illustration: THE GREEDY OKO.]

Determined, therefore, to forage as they went, and so to live at the
expense of beasts and reptiles, they proceeded on their march for several
days almost uninterrupted. They moved slowly, planning the details of
their campaign as they went.

Among those who took part in this expedition, and were prominent in the
counsels and events that followed, were these:

First was Cocoanut Scooper, the great hunter of the hills, who, if not
fierce in battle with wild beasts, was no less esteemed because of his
services in procuring provisions. He had scoured all the country round
about, and knew every tree and the quality of its fruit. He could at a
distance distinguish a palm, a walnut, a fig and a cinnamon tree; from
the appearance of a region he knew its value as a source of supplies; he
was expert in finding thickets where rabbits and other game abounded,
and he learned all the shoals of the Swamp where crabs and clams could
be taken. This man had charge of the commissaries, and looked out for
provisions for the expedition. During all their march his eye was on the
foliage of the forest, rather than on the trail of the Apes, looking for
something to eat rather than to fight.

Next was Fire-tamer, the bright-eyed hunter who took prisoner the
red-winged beast that feeds on wood, and, having caught him in his
lightning errand to earth, kept him a captive in the camp of the Ammi,
feeding him on brush and bark, and confining him within an earthen mound.
The all-devouring monster could not be satiated, but, after consuming all
the wood they could carry him, died when they stopped feeding him.

Next in valor and wise in counsel was Spread-mouth, the first man that
was known to laugh. His associates observed the changing size of his
mouth, which took as many dimensions as the chameleon took colors, and
was seen to be biggest when he was with women. Others learned to imitate
him, which was at first thought to detract, and then to add, to their
beauty, until, at the time of which we speak, half of the Ammi had
learned to laugh, but many of them awkwardly. The first laughs of men
were hardly distinguishable from grins and growls, and many indulged in
them unwillingly because of the huge teeth they displayed, which called
forth shudders rather than responsive smiles. They who laughed, laughed
alone, and not for many generations did a whole company join in laughter
together. As there was little wit to encourage laughter, the habit was
of slow growth, and its indulgence promoted quarreling rather than good
humor, because of the defiant appearance of the laugher. Only when men
became acquainted with laughter did they learn to like it, and not to
resent it. This great Spread-mouth was, therefore, long the terror and
the puzzle of the Ammi.

Next in honor and influence was the great jawed and big-fisted Pounder,
whose mouth and hands were a double terror to his enemies. He scorned to
fight with clubs or sharpened stones, but thought himself sufficiently
armed by nature to meet his enemy, whether man, or ape, or wild beast.
He had fought the woolly Rhinoceros and Cave Bear; he had climbed after
wild cats, and fought in the Swamp with alligators. Pounder had a long,
narrow head, with retreating forehead, and great jaws filled with oblique
teeth, which struck terror into an enemy. He was woolly-haired, being
covered with coarse, dark-brown bunches of hair over his whole body, and
a beard of lighter color. His arms were long, reaching almost to the
ground, so that he could walk as well as fight with them, using sometimes
one and sometimes both. They were powerful, whether to hold an object or
deal a blow. His legs were short and thin, with undeveloped calves, and
he walked half erect with in-bent knees, carrying a huge body that was
ever ready for assault. He was impatient to reach the enemy, and at times
quarreled with his friends that he might have somebody to fight. Pounder
was more useful in war than in peace; and had not this conflict broken
out to make him a hero, he would have been killed as a criminal.

A very different man from this, one shrewd in counsel and valiant in war,
was Abroo, known also as Family-Man. He had kept to one woman for years,
and kept together the children born to them, so that they constituted a
family. The children of his children were also recognized, and they, with
his other relatives were bound together in a kind of clan. He favored
this group, and sought to gain every advantage for it from the other
men. They kept their fruits together, and lived in common. A few others
were, indeed, admitted to their number, and all together they formed a
“set,” and the social distinction thus made was the foundation of caste.
Abroo was the leader, or patriarch, of this group, and all its members
adhered together in time of dispute. He acted for them all, which was
the beginning of representative government. He considered more what was
to their advantage than what was to the advantage of the whole people;
and many issues turned on whether the Abrooides or the rest of the Ammi
should control. The adherents of Abroo formed a kind of aristocracy. They
were high-minded, and, by general consent, deemed better than the average
man. Abroo had a great contempt for Pounder, and in a recent quarrel
would have been killed by the latter, had not his clansmen interfered to
save him. Abroo proposed that they fight by clans, saying that he would
lead his own hosts; but the suggestion did not prevail, as most of the
Ammi were not grouped in families, and did not even know their relations.
Abroo, however, persisted in keeping his party together in war, as in
peace, and in directing their movements.

There were many other valiant men who went up in this march, and some
women. Among the latter was Watch-the-girls, who protected females
from the embraces of the stronger sex. She beat Spread-Mouth almost to
death for trying one of his smiles on a young girl in the woods, and
pulled bunches of hair out of his back. She scratched an eye out of
Goat-strut for his persistent attentions to unwilling females, and even
Pounder was afraid of her, not that she could vanquish him in fight, but
because other men generally assisted her in a fight against a lascivious
lover. She went fearlessly to war, and led many women and young girls
to battle. For, as yet, both sexes fought, and not the male only; and
Watch-the-girls had more followers than Abroo.

Such were the hosts that went up against the Lali. They numbered two
thousand, although subsequent accounts placed them at many times this
number. They were less numerous, however, than the Lali; but owing to
their greater skill and to their arms, they hoped to overcome larger
numbers.

CHAPTER XXIII.

[Illustration]

On the fourth day of their march the Ammi came to a body of water, which
threatened to turn them back and defeat their expedition. The great
earthquake, in tilting the country, had caused the Swamp to overflow,
and cover a great part of the dry land. There was a large lake formed in
this way, which was connected with the Swamp by a strait, or narrow neck
of water. It was necessary for the Ammi to cross this strait, or else go
round the new lake.

“This lake was not here when I passed this way before,” said Koree, “so
that it cannot be deep. Let us, therefore, go through it, for we can
easily wade.”

He thereupon marched in, leading the way for the hosts of mankind to
follow. He was soon, however, beyond his depth, and ordered a retreat.

“We have not struck the right path,” he said; “let us cross farther away
from the Swamp.”

He accordingly made a second attempt, but with no better result. The
water was everywhere too deep to ford.

“I think,” said another, “that we had better go round. If the lake is a
new one it cannot be large.”

“If the water is so deep,” replied a third, “it must extend far into the
country. I think we had better go through the Swamp.”

“There appears,” said still another, “to be more water in the Swamp than
anywhere else. I wonder where all this water comes from.”

“To settle the matter,” said Cocoanut-scooper, “I will climb this palm
tree. From its top I can see the end of the lake if it is small.”

Suiting his action to his words he bounded up the tree, which was an easy
matter for one who had climbed so many in prospecting for fruit.

“There is no end of the water,” he said, on returning. “The Swamp is
flooded and the new lake extends far out of sight.”

“There is then nothing to do,” said Koree, “but to cross it. So let us
spread out, and each hunt for a shallow place.”

“We might,” observed another, “wait till the water subsides.”

“Or,” said Oko, “we could go back and give up the war. If the country
is flooded everything beyond is destroyed, and we will make nothing by
conquering the Lali, who have no doubt been washed out with all their
provisions.”

“There is plenty of fruit beyond,” said Cocoanut-Scooper, “I observed
that before coming down from the palm. We shall have a prosperous march
if we only get over this water.”

The great flood, however, rolled, like Jordan, between them and the
promised land; and no power, human or apian, had yet crossed such a
stream.

A few limbs and trunks of trees were floating in the water, which
suggested an idea to Koree.

“If we could each get on one of these pieces of floating wood,” he said,
“we might get over the water; for the wind is driving them in that
direction.”

“Good,” said Pounder, “and I will be the first to try it. I can handle a
wild beast or an alligator, and so need not fear a log.”

So he rushed into the water and seized the trunk of a dead tree floating
near, and was soon astride it drifting toward the other shore.

Others followed his example, and soon the river was full of warriors,
each trying to mount a log and sail across the lake. Some of the limbs,
however, were too small to bear their weight, and had to be abandoned.
Others were of awkward shape and would not remain long in the same
position, and so could not be controlled. Several, however, mounted
successfully, and expected soon to reach the opposite shore. Pounder was
in the lead, and beckoned the rest to follow him.

But there were not logs enough to supply all, so that not many followed
him, and some began to disparage this means of crossing.

“Come on,” cried Pounder. “If you are afraid of the water, how do you
expect to meet the enemy?”

“Come back,” replied Koree, “till we can all provide ourselves with logs,
or else find other means of crossing.”

[Illustration: POUNDER’S MISHAP.]

“I will not come back,” he said; “you are cowards, and when I get on the
other side I will”—

Just then his log turned, and the great Pounder was seen with his feet
in the air, kicking at the sun. Down he went head first into the water
and out of sight. Soon, however, he reappeared, and after spitting out a
mouthful of water, and shaking his locks, tried to regain his log. But
he could not raise himself for awhile, and when at last he succeeded in
remounting the log it turned again and buried him a second time out of
sight.

“I would rather have hold of an alligator than of this thing,” he said,
as he came up spitting and shivering.

Finding, however, that he could not mount the log securely, he abandoned
it, and swam back to the shore; and all the rest who had not been thrown
from their logs followed his example, lest they should meet a like
disaster.

But the experiment was not lost, and the fruitless attempt to cross in
this way suggested several improvements in navigation.

“Some logs float better than others,” observed Koree; and there was a
long discussion about how to trim and hew them so as to make them hold a
man. Many experiments were made. They used their stone wedges and bear’s
teeth to hollow them into shape. This work continued for days, and as a
result of their consultations and efforts, a crude canoe, or boat was
formed, but not till after many failures to make it hold its contents.
The first success was accomplished by Duco who managed, after many
dangers, to cross the lake in a vessel of his own construction.

There was now an ambition in every one to construct a boat, and they
almost forgot the war in their enthusiasm for this new industry. The
art of ship-building was thus begun, and a navy put in process of
construction.

CHAPTER XXIV.

[Illustration]

“We can never at this rate,” said Koree, “construct boats enough to cross
this water. We have already toiled many days and only one man has yet
crossed and returned.”

“Even if we could get our boats ready,” replied Pounder, “we could not
rely on them to carry us safely across. Duco waited long for a good wind,
and when it came it blowed him in many directions before landing him on
the opposite shore. If we entered such vessels, we would be scattered and
lost.”

“Let us go back,” said Oko, “or we will lose all.”

Koree at this moment observed that several of the logs had floated
together, and were being driven about in a cluster. The boys were amusing
themselves by jumping from one to another, and all were being carried
along by the flood.

“If we could fasten those logs together,” he said, “they would hold many
of us, and by making several such collections we could all get across.”

This was a new idea which was immediately acted upon by the Ammi. It did
not take our early ancestors long to adopt a suggestion or introduce an
improvement. From the thought to the act was only a step, and, though
most steps were failures, they made so many that occasionally they
achieved a success.

“Collect all the logs,” he said, “and get willows and bark to fasten them
together.”

They were, therefore, soon busy collecting the logs that were in the
water, and rolling others from the land with their clubs, which they used
as levers, thus learning incidentally an important mechanical principle.
With their hatchets of flint they chopped off branches, shaped the timber
into the desired form, and even felled trees for their bark or trunks. It
was obvious that a raft would soon be constructed and set afloat.

They had shortly before built in a similar manner a small bridge near
their dwellings to enable them to cross to a dry point in the Swamp; and,
seeing a flood carry it away, (when it floated on the water), they were
not wholly unprepared to see this new raft also float.

“If one log floats why will not more?” asked Koree.

“If our bridge floated away, this also will do so,” replied another; and
they thenceforth called it the “floating bridge.”

The raft was soon finished, and a large number of men and women at once
rushed upon it, so many, indeed, that it began to sink.

This was looked upon as a failure, and the disappointment of the whole
human race was no less than when Fulton’s first steamer failed to move.

“The thing will not float,” observed Oko.

“It floated,” replied Duco, “until we all got upon it. If some would get
off it would float again.”

“But we must all cross over, or none,” replied Abroo, the Family-man.

“Let us build more rafts,” interposed Koree, “and in several of them we
can all cross.”

“Instead of this,” said Abroo, the Family-man, “let part of our hosts
cross at once, when this structure can be brought back for the others to
cross. I and my party will cross first.”

This was agreed to, except that, instead of Abroo and his clan, Duco was
chosen to take charge of the first load.

The next difficulty was in getting the raft started. It lay motionless
with its load.

“Wait till the wind rises,” said Koree.

Presently a gust struck them, but it had no effect in starting them.

“Let us push the thing with our clubs,” said Duco, at which all applied
themselves vigorously.

The raft was easily moved in this way, and continued to go as long as
they could reach bottom; but in deep water it stood still, or floated at
the mercy of the waves. Pounder tried to move it by sitting on one log
and pushing with his feet against another. Others beat the water, which
had a little effect. Duco then discovered that by pushing in the opposite
direction against the water they could make it move; and soon they were
paddling in the modern fashion. During much of the way the water was
shallow enough to permit them to use their clubs as poles, or, to get
out and push; so that they were soon far out from land and going in the
right direction.

They would now have reached the opposite shore but for Pounder, who
kept pushing in the way just described thinking he was forcing along
the raft. By reason of his vigorous efforts he snapped the bands which
held the logs together. The raft broke in pieces and he was the first to
fall through into the water. He went down between the logs which he was
pushing apart. Others fell into the water with him, but most remained
on one part or other of the raft; for it broke into nearly equal parts.
Pounder floundered awhile in the water; but, being accustomed to that,
through his previous plunges from the log, he soon got hold of one of the
rafts and lifted himself out of the water.

“These things can’t be depended on,” he said, as he regained his place on
board.

They had now two rafts instead of one, and they pushed and paddled on
each. Pounder, instead of sitting on one log and pushing against another,
next took a seat on one log and pushed with his feet against a knot
on the same log, and believed he was rendering the principal aid in
propelling the raft.

It was easier to proceed with two small rafts than one large one, and
accordingly both were soon landed on the opposite shore, but not till
several of the passengers had fallen overboard and the craft had been
badly damaged.

This was the first water voyage made by the human race. After repairing
their vessels they returned and brought over the remaining hosts, but
not without similar mishaps. Gimbo, the grandfather of Sosee, fell,
with others, into the water, and was nearly drowned. Only by standing on
tiptoes could he keep his head above water until he was rescued, when he
made the following observation:

“The water is the only place where it is better to walk on two feet than
on four.”

Having now crossed the lake it was proposed by Oko that they keep the
rafts. “We spent too much work on them,” he said, “to throw them away.”

“We cannot take them with us,” replied Koree.

“We may want them when we return,” interposed Duco; “so let us fasten
them where we can find them.”

“And let us leave somebody here to watch them,” said Oko, apprehensive
lest some of their property should be lost.

Like the ships of the Greeks on the coast of Troy these rafts were,
accordingly, made fast, so that they should be ready for the return
voyage of the warriors at the close of the war.

CHAPTER XXV.

[Illustration]

The Ammi now continued their forward march with but little interruption.

“I fear this expedition will end in disaster,” said Gimbo; “our falling
into the water is a bad sign.”

“I think so to,” added Pounder, recalling his duckings; “but before it
ends I shall have a fight with the Apes, and smash some of their jaws.”

“What looks to me worst,” said another, “is, that when I was sharpening
my flint this morning, the Fire-monster suddenly appeared to me, starting
up out of the flint and immediately disappearing again.”

“I saw the same thing,” added another, “when Pounder struck me in the
eye. Fire flew in all directions and then disappeared.”

One of the scouts now returned breathless announcing that they could see
the Lali in the distance.

“Let me reconnoiter,” said Koree, who advanced rapidly to the farther
edge of the swamp, from which, indeed, the Apes could be distinctly seen.

These were running up and down the trees, apparently gathering fruit, and
chasing one another over the plains without any apparent purpose except
sport. But men never knew the deep designs of Monkeys.

“Where is Sosee, I wonder?” asked Koree, who was too much interested
in the object of his love to attend closely to the requirements of
war. He did not observe that at that moment a great ape was stealthily
approaching him from one side.

For the Apes had out their pickets as well as the men, owing to
apprehensions of an attack; while others were scattered through the Swamp
hunting food.

After a little waiting and looking he thought he descried Sosee in the
distance walking with a handsome ape who was exceedingly attentive to her.

Jealousy now succeeded to prudence, and his rage would have at once
carried him alone into the ranks of the enemy to capture her (and be
captured instead), but, another incident prevented him from accomplishing
this disaster.

“I will have her at once,” he said, “and scatter the brains of that
monkey attendant over any one who opposes me.”

At this instant the ape who was watching him ran up and dealt him a
powerful blow, knocking his resolution, his jealousy and his love out of
him for a while.

Koree, recovering his senses, now transferred his rage to this new
quarter, and, following it up with blows, soon brought to the ground his
assailant.

This was witnessed by other scouts of the Lali who ran to the rescue of
their companion, and also by some scouts of the Ammi who closed on the
combatants, so that an immediate fight was threatened between the pickets
of the two forces.

[Illustration: THE BATTLE BEGINS.]

This encounter, all unpremeditated, nearly defeated the schemes of both
parties. It destroyed the hope of secrecy on the part of the Ammi, who
thought to take the Lali by surprise; and destroyed the hope of ambush
on the part of the Lali who meant to entrap the approaching enemy in the
Swamp. Each party, moreover, being ignorant of the force by which it was
attacked, and fearing that it might be larger than its own, shrank from
fight.

As soon, therefore, as they got released from each other, they flew
apart, as if they had been fighting to escape, and not to conquer. Both
being afraid, and not daring to seem so, they affected to despise each
other, and so, showing their teeth and grinning a defiance, they went in
opposite directions, each hoping the other would take the encounter for
a chance meeting of strange apes hunting for food, and not a skirmish
between the advance guards of mighty hosts prepared for battle.

It was too late, however. Both powers were now apprised of each others’
designs, and both immediately put themselves in readiness for action.

Koree was much blamed by the Ammi for his rashness in precipitating this
encounter.

“It was your love,” said Abroo, “which brought us here to fight, and it
is your love which will now defeat us. O that love would take sense along
with it when it goes either to woo a woman or fight a battle.”

“But it generally turns to foolishness before it accomplishes anything,”
added Cocoanut-Scooper.

“And were there not a fool also on the other side it would never succeed
at all,” said Oko.

“Koree’s case,” added a fourth, “makes more trouble for others than
pleasure for himself.”

“For his falling in love once,” said Pounder, “I fell in the water twice.”

And so they went on reproaching poor Koree for having such a strong love
that it would not let them rest, and such a foolish one that it would not
let them fight.

Koree had nothing to say, but being himself most convinced of his own
foolishness, was angry that others agreed with him, and so simply changed
the subject.

“Be ready to fight at once,” he said, “as we may be attacked before we
have time to decide whether we will fight or not. Between the lake and
the Apes we have nothing left but to triumph.”

“It is either to be killed by the Apes or drowned in the water,” said
Oko, “and I don’t like either.”

“We’ll kill some apes before we are killed ourselves,” answered Pounder;
“at least, I will.”

“Their forces are more numerous than ours,” insisted Oko.

“That being so,” said Koree, who turned every objection into a new
device, “we will fight them by stealth, creeping upon them by night, or
enticing them into the woods.”

“Let us rather,” said Duco, “attack them openly, and all at once; though
we are less numerous we are armed, and have more skill than they.”

“I think,” said Gimbo, “that the Apes will triumph; they walk on all
fours, and people can fight better with four feet than with two; besides,
it is not right to—”

“Be still,” said Koree, “or give us your help, instead of your fears.”

It was resolved at last, as they could neither retreat nor stand still,
to go forward; and they determined to await an opportunity to make an
assault.

And now dread Terror brooded over the hosts of men, causing hearts to
flutter and visions of death to rush on the soul. Night and Blood and
Pain visited many in dreams, while to some Glory appeared, walking over a
vanquished foe. As Koree slept he thought he saw Sosee coming to him in
beauty with a branch of evergreen oak, and promise that he should rule
over a new race, while she should sit by his side as queen to receive the
admiration of all men.

The Apes also quaked, and the convulsions which had just thrown up the
Alps were trifling compared with the tremors that shook the breasts of
the embattled hosts that night. The morrow was to witness a conflict that
would decide whether the human race was to remain on earth or go out of
history in its infancy.

CHAPTER XXVI.

[Illustration]

Aurora now appeared in the east starting the sleepers from their dreams,
and advanced so bright that the terrified Ammi thought the Fire-monster
had seized the sky, and was spreading his wings over the whole world,
portending death to mortals. First she tinted the new-born Alps with
gold, then chased the mists from the valleys, and at last spread the
whole earth with day. The courage of the hosts now returned, which had
left them during the reign of the night-monsters in their dreams.

With the coming of the light the Ammi marched boldly up to the Lali,
while the latter, thrown first into confusion, ran about in a panic, and
then, gathering themselves into a body, offered defiance to the intruders.

As when a storm, rushing from the north, suddenly strikes the sea,
rolling the waves in mountain ridges along the main, which again,
breaking, rush back and fall like cliffs into the deep, stirring the
great cauldron of waters to its bottom, and then spread out again into
a calm, so the Apes, mightily stirred at the approach of stern War, and
driven by their fears, rushed hither and thither over the plain, mounting
the trees and scattering to places of safety, and then, as the storm of
terror passed on its way regained composure and settled down on the field
of battle ready for action.

First advanced from the ranks of the Ammi the mighty Pounder, impatient
for battle, and, surveying the plain which lay between the Men and the
Apes, he grinned a challenge to the whole Lali.

Him seeing from afar the mighty Scratch-for-Fleas, starting up from the
hosts of the Lali and shaking himself, (at which the earth trembled as
when Jupiter shook Olympus with a nod), advanced to him, saying:

“For what purpose come you to the shores of the Lali? Have the cocoanuts
failed beyond the Swamp, or do you come for our women? We will defend
our own, be they cocoanuts or girls. Go back, or taste the wrath of the
Monkeys.”

Him answering with a grin, the fierce Pounder showed his teeth. His great
lips parted, like the swinging gates of Babylon, bringing to view huge
rows of marble-like columns that lined, like palisades, a deep, dark
gorge.

A like mouth opened on the other side; and Scratch-for-Fleas, looking now
to the east and now to the west, advanced, first on four feet and then
on two. Next he moved sidewise, and, at last, for a moment, stood still,
moving however in contemplation his great features, which, following
his thoughts, changed fast in shape and color like clouds in a mountain
storm.

“Do you come for the maiden of Ilo?” he said. “You will return without
her. Give back your stolen fruits and women, and we may make peace before
war begins.”

Pounder thereupon, without answering, rushed for Scratch-for-Fleas, being
better fitted for war than for diplomacy.

Scratch-for-Fleas, fearing the mighty assault, retreated to the hosts of
the Lali, unwilling to fight so great a champion; and thereupon a loud
shout went up from the Ammi at their bloodless victory. Pounder, however,
was disappointed, for he loved fighting better than conquering.

Then the nimble-shanked Nut-picker, he who had been reared on the slopes
of Wildcat Mountain, went out from the hosts of the Lali bearing a
cocoanut in his hand.

Him seeing, the avaricious Oko, not knowing whether it was a weapon or a
truce-signal, went forth to meet, saying, “Do you mean war or cocoanuts?
If you mean cocoanuts, produce enough and we may give up the fight.”

Then the nimble-shanked Nut-picker, true-aiming, threw and struck him,
and the cocoanut rolled to the ground on one side, and Oko on the other.
Picking up himself and then the cocoanut, Oko thereupon retired to the
ranks of the Ammi bearing with him his defeat and his booty.

War was now declared and begun, and the two parties, hitherto friends, or
indifferent to each other, became enemies. So great a difference does so
slight a change produce.

Then, according to the legends of the Ammi, the great spirit of Shoozoo,
looking out from the heavens at the combatants, and fearing that his
worshippers might be destroyed, called a council of the gods. Simlee,
his wife, Queen of Heaven, appeared, leaving her mists, and the great
winged Alligator came up out of the Swamp, dripping with the flood, and
the Fire-god left his place in the sky, and the Rainbow folded up his
rays, and the Wind left the earth and sea, (so that there was a season of
calms), and they all met in the sky to take counsel on the events that
were about to transpire on earth.

“Dire war,” said Shoozoo, “is hovering over the world, and, unless it is
averted, neither Men nor Apes nor earth will long survive. Only recently
I saw the world mount up toward the sky, and to-day it stands on tip-toe
trying to reach the heavens; for the Alps have not yet gone down. The
great Swamp left its bed to march over dry ground, and has not yet gone
back. The noise of the earthquake has hardly yet subsided, but still
reverberates in distant thunders; and, should war yet rage, things will
be so mixed up that nothing will remain for earth or sky that is certain
for either.”

“I will arise as a mist,” said Simlee, “and, passing between the two
armies, prevent their collision by destroying their sight.”

“The Fire-god will soon scatter the mists,” said Night, “so that they can
fight in clear day. Let me rather settle down upon them, through whom
none can see; and, though it be but noon, I will wipe out their day.”

And wrapping herself in thick clouds she started for the earth to cover
the battle-field with impenetrable shadows.

“Let me rather,” said the great Alligator, “empty the Swamp on them
again, and overwhelm them with a second flood.”

“They have made boats,” said the Wind, “and now defy the waters. Let me
rather start the air against them. I will give it wings to beat their
faces and call in Thunder to frighten them and Rain to blind them, and
will so mix heaven and earth and sea together against them that they
cannot proceed.”

“There is nothing,” said Shoozoo, “that will avail, but to assuage
their wrath, which crosses streams and night and outlasts weather. An
interruption to-day prolongs the war, but does not end it. Let us not,
by impeding them, add to their rage against each other and their anger
against us. For I fear that men will one day mount to heaven and destroy
the Gods.”

This advice they consented to follow, not, however, because any of them
wanted to, but because they could not agree among themselves what to do.

It was accordingly decided that the deities, operating all together,
should descend to the combatants to work on their minds; and so, wrapping
themselves in clouds, and mists, and rain, and shadow, and light, which
were all mistaken by Mortals for forms of the weather, they entered the
battle with both Men and Apes, and worked for peace and a mitigation of
the horrors of war.

But when Men and Gods are thus at variance, the Gods fail; and the
council of heaven having broken up, the war of earth went on.

CHAPTER XXVII.

[Illustration]

First Koree, unmindful of the counsel of the skies, moved forward, and,
fearing neither Gods nor Monkeys, sought to begin the battle.

He stood in the plain between the two armies, like an oak in an open
field between two forests. Breathing defiance to the Lali, he called out:

“Who dares to meet me of all your hosts, and ward off death from his brow
when I discharge this dart, the swift avenger of my wrong?”

Him seeing, and not fearing, the great Tree-climber of the mountains ran
to meet, he who had often pulled the tails of cats, and grinned at larger
beasts. Stopping often, and then starting again, like a great river that
now rushes with violence, and then stops and whirls in an eddy, (showing
commotion in its stop as in its onward course), he, seeming irresolute,
plunged at last at Koree, having eluded his missiles, and seized him with
hands and teeth. Hair and blood flew from Koree, who in turn sent a blow
to Tree-climber’s ribs, which loosed his ribs and no less his fingers
and teeth from Koree’s flesh; and the great warriors, bleeding and
aching, flew apart. They stood, frowning like two mountain peaks about
to fall with a crash upon each other, but were stayed in their rage by a
return of Fear, the destroyer of battles. Both having enough, and being
uncertain what it would be to get more, went back, one to the west like
the sun, and the other to the east like a shadow; and there was a lull in
the storm.

[Illustration: KOREE’S CHALLENGE.]

Then Kimpoo, the skunk-scented, rising among the Lali, went forth,
breathing war from his extended nostrils, and, scratching first his thigh
and then his ribs, said in defiant tones:

“Invaders of our homes! go back to disgrace, or come forth to death.”

So saying he threw a cocoanut which grazed the ear of Duco, calling forth
a little blood and a big howl, and then passed on and struck the stomach
of Pounder, producing only a grunt.

Then High-tail, the Wood-pecker hunter, ran forth, he who knew all the
holes in Possum Grove, and smelt at many and was sad. Aiming at Kimpoo
a marrow bone, he threw it with such force, that, whistling through the
air, it was heard but not seen. It entered his head where a flea had left
a bite at early dawn; and as the bone went in his soul went out. Down he
fell with a crash, as when a mountain fir is broken in the storm.

Then Ilko, a friend of the slain ape and lover of huckle berries, rushed
forth to avenge his death, and, aiming a stone at the head of High-tail,
threw it with such precision that death entered where he struck, and the
losses between the two forces were equal.

Then seeing that Death was to be the companion of this War, and uncertain
which army would survive, Koree invoked the aid of Shoozoo.

“Great spirit of the skies and Swamp, God and Alligator,” he said, “teach
us to conquer on this field or to run away in time. May our arms be
stronger than the enemy, or our feet swifter than Death.”

And then rushing out he called on any of the Lali to come forth to meet
him in battle, and particularly Ilo, the robber of his pleasures.

But Ilo was sitting afar off with Sosee, guarding her against escape
and the seductions of Oboo his rival, and he heard not the challenge to
battle.

But Owl-catcher heard, and, fired with anger and a desire for glory, went
forth to meet him. On all fours he went, looking up at times as he ran
and rising on his feet to survey the field.

Koree, advancing, threw a sharpened flint at him, aiming at where the
hair is parted on the brow, and there it entered. The distant Alps
disappeared from the eyes of Owl-catcher, and, as all things faded from
his sight, he knew not whether the world or a monkey was collapsing.

Now Ilo, hearing that he was challenged, came to the fight; but not
willingly. Sosee had demanded that he play not the coward; for love
cannot follow the timorous. But whether she deeply designed that he
should die or be victor, none could fathom. He came to the front and met
the proud Koree who said:

“I have a plentiful supply of death for the Lali, and for you I will send
it on this bone;” and he discharged a split marrow-bone at his breast.
It was one that Sosee had sharpened while they talked together of love
and acted out their conversation, and she had graved on it, with a bear’s
tooth, the wing of a dragon fly.

This marrow-bone pierced the flesh of Ilo, but not his love-tickled
heart; and he ran away screaming and bleeding, not wishing to die while
in the joys of his first love.

He sought out Sosee in the distance, who showered her compassion, if not
her affection, upon him; and she drew the bone from his breast, when,
seeing it was the weapon of Koree which her own hands had fashioned, she
was thrown into consternation.

“Is my lover fighting my lover?” she asked, “and do I make the weapons
that slay them?” and she rushed to the scene of battle and came between
the lines.

At the sight of Sosee a shout arose from the Ammi, who thought that
she had escaped, or else that the Lali, fearing their defeat, were
surrendering her. Koree ran to meet her, forgetful that the battle was
raging, when, being about to grasp her in his arms, he was struck by a
cocoanut in the ear, which had been thrown by Tree-jumper, an ape from
the Bamboo plains, who had started in her pursuit. Koree fell to the
ground, stunned by the stroke of the ape and the sight of his beloved,
for the double blow on his eye and ear exhausted him, being already weary
from strife. But he fell unhurt, and was picked up by friends and carried
to a place of safety.

Sosee, however, was seized by Tree-jumper, and taken back to the Lali,
who placed her far from the front, where she was safe from both death and
rescue.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

[Illustration]

Now the battle raged on all sides. Not one but many went forth from each
army, and were engaged in groups fighting hand to hand, or throwing
missiles. The sudden appearance of Sosee, which revived the hopes of the
Ammi, who thought the girl and the end of the war were both within their
grasp, increased their fury when they saw her followed by a captor, and a
general rush was made to take the field and the girl by storm.

First Pounder entered the combat, and was met by an ape from the north
country. This ape was descended from a long line of heroes; Sookaloo was
his father, who had fought bumble-bees in the meadows about the great
springs, and there the bones of his kindred repose. This ape, advancing
to meet Pounder, drew the battle toward him. Both clenched and opened
their jaws, and soon both were in each other’s arms and teeth. Anger and
strength met in Pounder, and were united for the death of his antagonist.
But this was delayed awhile, and struggles, growls and blood were
yielded instead. Then weakness followed, and at last darkness gathered
about the eyes of the ape; his thoughts took flight, and quiet settled
over him even in battle.

Striding over his body Pounder now rushed on to new conquests, impatient
for more strife. A great gorilla-like monster next met him, approaching
from afar. With thoughts of death in his eye, he came walking on his
hands, swinging his great body between them, like a huge kettle between
two posts. He appeared to be walking and sitting at once.

“Come you to bring new honor to these arms?” said Pounder. “I will soon
bear your death about me as a trophy, and those that I send out of the
world will not be lonely beyond the Swamp.”

As when Day and Night meet at dawn, and, in hot contest redden the whole
sky with blood, and, Night being slain, Day moves on over the sky in
undisputed and undivided sway, so these mighty heroes met, and in the
battle the ape was overcome and sank from the contest, while Pounder,
rising like the sun from the death of Night, marched on victorious over
the scene, and was lord of the field.

On again rushed Pounder, like Hector at Troy; and the Apes, seeing their
warriors fall at his strokes, feared to engage him in single combat.

“Let us attack him together,” they said; and two great apes stood up to
meet him, like twin mountain peaks approached by a storm. One met his
fist with his eye and saw no more that day; the other seized his arm and
in that grasp laid hold of Death, whom none survive; and as he fell the
dull earth reëchoed the crash to the mountains, which he alone did not
hear.

Terror now took hold of all that beheld the mighty Pounder, and they fled
from his advance as peasants working in a field flee from an approaching
flood, some to be overtaken and destroyed, and others to escape to a safe
place in the highlands. Pounder now chased, instead of fought, the Apes,
hunting for a foe with whom to measure his strength and with difficulty
finding one.

At last Ilo, recovering from his wound, but not his rage, rushed again to
the field, (impelled also by Sosee), and, seeing the advance of Pounder,
which drove the Apes before him, met him with a stone, (which reaches
further than an ape’s arm). Forth into the air, like Iris from the
command of Jove, rushed this messenger of wrath, and, singing a battle
cry as it went, it struck Pounder in the breast; when out went his breath
and up went his feet—but only for awhile. Pounder arose again, but, being
unable to fight, was carried back by his comrades; and again the fight
went on without him, to his great disappointment.

The Apes, encouraged by the arrest of the flood of death, now returned to
the field, and everywhere were single fights. Stones, cocoanuts, gourds
and bones flew through the air. Cries and groans mingled with growls, and
which was man and which was monkey could not be discerned in the battle.

Finger-at-his-nose, an ape from the shores lying to the south, where his
ancestors fished for crabs with their tails, and made mighty grimaces
while waiting for a bite, scraped the face of Stretch-mouth with a shell,
and was put to flight with a club in hands of Abroo; and, as he ran a
shower of stones followed him, and he thought the crabs of all the Swamp
were pulling at him.

Then High-climber, who was quick to look around and unfriendly to
mosquitos, advanced from among the Apes with a cocoanut in his hand. This
cocoanut he had pulled in a dense grove at sunset and hid at the foot of
a palm, where a buzzard was feeding on an aurochs. The buzzard dug it
up and carried it to a mountain crag, where Imko, finding it, brought
it to the camp of the Lali. There High-climber, seeing it, again took
possession of it and slew Imko the supposed thief. With this cocoanut,
High-climber, aiming at the head of Frog-catcher, struck him where the
nose separates the eyes, like the mountains of Caucasus between two great
seas. Frog-catcher fell and one less Ammi was left to propagate the new
race.

Then Watch-the-Girls, furious with rage, rushed forth, and, with a sharp
stone and loud shout, mixed in the fight. Ape after ape fell before her,
wounded or scared. Like a she-wolf tearing the fold she ran about dealing
destruction, while the timid flock fled on all sides, or gathered in
groups too frightened to flee. One, Bushy-face thought to resist her,
and, turning, aimed a dart at her bright eye. But, too dazzled or too
terrified to aim, he missed his mark, when, from the same eye, she sent
a dart of defiance and from her hand a stone. Both struck the eye which
aimed the first blow, and back went retribution on the wrong intended.
Down sank Bushy-face in darkness, and away went all things from his view.
To the world the monkey was no more, and to the monkey the world was no
more; and which was destroyed has never been settled between them.

Then off in the distance was heard a great chorus of screams, while a
rush of all the Apes to that quarter drew the battle with it. The girls,
who had been led to the war by Watch-the-Girls, then thought to enter the
fight. They had been restrained by their leader; but now, impetuous, they
rushed against the enemy; whom seeing, the salacious Apes, enamoured of
the daughters of Men, and forgetting their anger in their lust, gave up
the battle for a rape, and rushed upon the girls to make them prisoners.
The girls, scorning to be carried away instead of attacked, (having come
to fight and not to be wooed), struggled hard with their captors, but
more from pride than desire.

Then all the Ammi, seeing that their girls were about to be taken,
transferred the war to that quarter, and fought for their own, instead
of against the enemy. Inspired by jealousy as well as rage, the battle
now waxed fiercer, as when to a raging fire is added the wind, and the
conflagration spreads into a forest. Death moved about rapidly over the
field, visiting now a man and now an ape, and calling him to the Walhalla
beyond the Swamp; and the plain was scattered with his victims.

CHAPTER XXIX.

[Illustration]

Oboo, hearing there was a fight for girls, now came forward to take part.
He had till now sulked in the rear, because of Ilo’s good fortune in
possessing Sosee. Defeated in love, and still smarting from his wounds,
he had refused, like Achilles, to fight, and, nursing his wrath afar off,
desired the defeat of the Lali. He had long insisted that Sosee should be
restored to the Ammi, and the war ended. But, as others continued it, he
persisted in his absence, even when the Lali were in danger of rout and
their possessions of loss. Many had fallen on account of his inaction.
Oft did the chiefs approach him to assuage his wrath. But the volcanic
fires in his breast refused to be cooled, and awaited their time to burst
out and destroy his rivals. An ape will not waste himself on an enemy
when he has a rival for his anger.

But hearing that there was to be a capture of girls, his anger melted
into lust, and he relented. What neither the North Wind nor the Rain
could do the warmth within him sufficed to accomplish—it moved his
mighty will. For dread War, stalking over the land and breathing his hot
breath in his face, had failed to arouse him. Mightier Reason, borne on
the tongue of Pity, could not move him. Even Glory had no allurements to
draw him from his retreat. But Beauty, which now visited him in fancies,
tickled him into action; and, like the needle following the invisible
pole, he went, strongly impelled, to the scene of battle, where to his
thoughts a field was pictured with delights.

Rumor went abroad, and everywhere proclaimed to the female Apes that the
great Oboo was coming to battle, and many hearts beat at the prospect of
beholding him. Young women and maidens came to see, nor did the old stay
away. Many who had an interest in him past, present or future, sought to
look on; and those who could not be moved by love came from curiosity.

With majestic step their hero advanced. Not as the common warrior comes
came he forth. Slowly like the Morning, he advanced to the eyes of a
wondering world. A female ape had parted his locks in the morning and
picked the burrs from his shaggy limbs; and, as he stood out against the
sky, his form was a monument of beauty to both the women and himself.

Looking to one side and then to the other, (not to reconnoitre, but to
receive the admiration of the females) he reflected, as he shook his
slender legs, that they who now beheld him with solicitude would receive
him back with gratitude. Victory seemed assured in his bearing, and, like
the sun at noon, he dazzled the hosts with his splendor.

Such was the appearance of the mighty Oboo on entering the field; and as
he advanced the eastern zephyrs moved through his louse-less locks, and
his brow, like the forest-crowned head of Mt. Ida, seemed glorified.

Him seeing from afar the great Boomboo, calling all the Gods to his aid,
ran forth to meet. “O Shoozoo,” he cried, “lend me all the heavens with
their fires and loud thunders to match this terror of the plains, the
wrath-inflamed fighter of men and lover of women; and to-night I will
devote to you a live dragon fly caught where the thistles of the Swamp do
bloom and the bats are sleeping.”

So saying he seized a big water-melon, such as two men of our day could
not lift, and he raised it in mid air. It was a melon which had grown on
the sandy banks of Alligator Swamp; three generations had eaten fruit
from that spot, and cast the seeds along the wide-reaching shore. This
great water-melon the mighty Boomboo smashed on the head of Oboo. For,
throwing it with great force, he sent it heavily through the air, as when
a huge rock is thrown convulsively from a volcano. A great flying terror
it went, casting a moving shadow over the earth; and it went not in vain;
but, descending from its flight, it struck the well-picked head of Oboo,
and dreadful was the sound of the thud.

Bursting with a quake, as when the earth opens, it was scattered in
countless pieces, never to be again united. Pulp and rind and seeds were
splattered over his brow and well-smoothed locks, and the juice ran down
over his face, and covered his hairy chest, and flowed from his limbs
to the ground. Dripping and sticky the proud Oboo, like a half-drowned
rat crawling out of a well, sneaked away, unfit to be seen, and would no
longer match his prowess against the Ammi in battle.

[Illustration: THE RETREAT OF THE LALI.]

Inextinguishable laughter arose among the men; while even among
the Lali there was merriment. The females were most amused at the
seed-besplattered lover; and Ilo, glad in his heart at his inglorious
retreat, said with contempt:

“Go back to the women and get dried up; you were made not for war, but
for love.”

Like a bubble blown by a boy, which swells bigger and bigger, until the
sky and mountains are reflected in it, and then, at the moment of its
greatest bulk, when it seems to carry the whole world, bursts and settles
into a little suds, so the swelling Oboo, who matched the sun in its
splendor when he came to battle, dwindled to a sop as he returned.

Meanwhile the girls who had been drawn into the battle, and for whom Oboo
had left his retreat, fought so fiercely that none of them were captured,
but many of their assailants were slain or left wounded on the field.

And now all the Lali retreated from the victorious Ammi, being
demoralized by the victory of the girls and the discomfiture of Oboo,
while the Ammi prepared to move with all their force on the Lali and to
end the war that day.

But Night settled down on the contending armies, and the wheels of
history stopped awhile.

CHAPTER XXX.

[Illustration]

Sleep came not to the Ammi that night, but instead Pestilence settled
down upon them. The water of the Swamp, stirred by the recent floods,
and the strange fruits which they had eaten since leaving home, had
brought Colic to the camp, and, like Dreams, it visited the couches of
the heroes, and rolled them about in aches and pains. Night slackened its
pace and dwelt long among them, covering with darkness their pain; and,
as they ran about holding their stomachs and looking for sweet relief,
which came not, the Lali, who faintly discerned their movements in the
moonlight, thought they were making preparations for battle, and so they
fled, lest disaster should follow on their defeat of the day before. Thus
did the Lali run away from the Belly-ache.

And when Aurora, closing the gates of the world on Night, advanced,
announcing with freshened breath the Day, and her golden train fell in
rich drapery over the eastern sky, the Ammi were seen lying about in
groups, doubled up and griping, each caring not for glorious victory but
for peace within. Koree forgot his beloved Sosee, and Pounder lay in a
big heap, caring neither for battle nor country.

Gimbo walking about on all fours administered relief, being physician as
well as priest.

“There is nothing so good for colic,” he said, “as to pound the stomach;”
and, taking a long-necked pumpkin, he gave each a blow on the spot where
the pain was felt. This caused the patient to give a jerk and a howl.

“That is good;” said Gimbo, “it is the colic jumping out of you;” and in
very bad cases he repeated the blow.

“It is well,” he added, “to keep your stomachs turned toward the Swamp;
the colic always goes out on that side, owing to the influence of the
Alligator.”

He also applied the wing of a dragon fly to those who had not yet
contracted the complaint, with a view to keep it away.

“When the colic sees this sign of Shoozoo,” he said, “it is afraid to
come near you.”

There were no hostilities that day, the Lali being kept back by fear and
the Ammi by colic.

On the morning following, when Pain and Fear had fled from both camps,
the combatants were far apart. The Lali had retreated either for safety
or preparations, and the Ammi had the field, but were without an enemy
either to fight or treat with for peace.

Anxiety now took the place of colic in their breasts, and uncertainty
about what the Lali were devising made them hesitate about their own
course.

Meanwhile other matters came to occupy their attention.

“I have long noticed,” said Gimbo, “that it is getting colder. Walking
on four feet I learn things sooner than others. I used to walk without
discomfort to my hands. But now the ground is so cold that I can hardly
stand it with either feet or hands. I must get up a tree to keep warm, or
else go into a hole.”

Others had observed the same change. In fact it was the sudden cold,
coming the night before, that helped bring on the colic just mentioned.
It disturbed the temperature of the body, and the first inconvenience
from sudden changes of climate was felt by mankind.

Nor was this a small matter. The first Glacial Period had set in. That
great catastrophe which, at the end of the Tertiary Age, covered the
northern hemisphere with mountains of ice, burying the earth out of
sight, and destroying all life, was beginning to make itself felt.

Farther to the north, (as they heard), the progress of the cold was well
under way, but now its influence first reached the Ammi.

“What is that?” asked several at once, directing their attention to the
sky.

A snow storm had come. It was the first snow that had fallen in those
regions, and was a stranger to both Men and Apes.

“It’s the clouds coming down from the sky,” said one; “they have broken
in pieces and are falling.”

“It is blossoms from the trees in heaven,” said Koree, who had grown
sentimental from long thinking about Sosee; “Shoozoo is shaking them
down as he runs through the forests after owls.”

“I think it is dragon flies,” said Gimbo, who observed the form of the
flakes. “There is here the short-beam and the long-beam. Surely Shoozoo
is coming to the earth, and we ought to be very devout.”

Among the Lali the snow produced still greater consternation. Some said
it was the white form of Simlee, the wife of Shoozoo, who was coming to
the Apes; and all agreed that it came on account of the war between the
Apes and the Men. In as much as a snow-flake, when examined, was seen to
turn to water, a priest of the Lali remarked that it was going back to
Shoozoo, the great reservoir, or Swamp, into which all things at last
return.

Suddenly there was a tremendous rush of arctic animals over both camps,
and all the country, as far as the eye could reach, was alive with them.
They came from the north where the heavy snows had started a migration
southward. Aurochs, reindeer, Irish elk and other kinds now extinct,
were in the herds. They rushed pell-mell before the snows, tramping down
everything in their way, and falling over one another, like a stampede of
buffaloes or wild horses. Many were trampled to death or else left maimed
in their trail. Mingled among them were lions, leopards and other savage
beasts, which followed them for food, or were also migrating to a warmer
climate; so that there was a slaughter of many kinds in the herds. It
seemed to the Ammi as if all the beasts had gone to war, as well as the
Men and Apes, and were marching in great armies and fighting constant
battles.

“The Sky and the North are both pouring out their forces upon us,” said
Abroo.

“Let us catch them, and keep them for food,” said Oko, who had been
trying to tame a calf of the Urus which he had captured, thus beginning
the work of domestication, which the descendants of the Ammi have
continued till now.

“It is better to let them go,” said Koree, who picked up the clubs and
missiles which they had scattered; “we ought to be glad to be rid of
them.”

For some of the Ammi had been trampled to death in the stampede, so that
this incursion of cattle upon them was nearly as destructive as the war.

After the herds had gone by, they were seen to spread out over the plains
in the direction from which the Ammi had come to the seat of war. There
they found grass and were leisurely grazing.

“It looks,” said Abroo, “as if they had come to stay, so that when we
return from the war they will dispute the possession of Cocoanut Hill
with us.”

The snow, however, continued to fall, which, like the curse of the
wandering Jew, was to give the fugitives no rest.

CHAPTER XXXI.

[Illustration]

Meanwhile the Lali who had been worsted in the war, and whose defeat even
the gallant Oboo could not avert, determined on a change of tactics.
Recognizing their inferiority as combatants (being not so generally armed
or so skilled in the use of arms as the Ammi), they resolved to make up
in numbers what they lacked in skill; and so they sent out ambassadors
and summoned all the apes from the countries beyond, shrewdly using the
respite of the last few days from battle to collect allies.

Out into the forests and among the palm groves, therefore, they went,
calling to the inhabitants of the trees and vines to come down, and
sending their summons into the tangled thickets of the swamps. And the
apes left their cocoanuts and cinnamon branches, and came up out of their
fisheries, (abandoning their sports with parrots, and their fights with
owls,) and hurried to the country of the Lali and the seat of war.

The Apes were far more numerous than the men, the latter being only
one colony in the whole world, who were now all collected on one field
of battle, whereas the Apes, though differing from one another, (being
of many species besides the Man-apes,) were practically without limit
(taking in all the country and all the varieties of Apes,) so that it was
only a question of how wide a territory they should scour for allies, in
order to bring any number to battle.

These apes, moreover, could be easily united on almost any project, as
there were yet no conflicting interests to dissuade them; so that in a
short time an innumerable host was assembled at the seat of war—great,
small, tailless, speechless and everything from the big gorilla to the
common monkey.

To add to the good fortune of the Lali, there had come also, along with
the migrating cattle, several large herds of apes from the north. These,
which at another time would have met the hostility of the Lali, and
perhaps been slain as enemies, or as competitors for their food, were now
welcomed and enlisted as allies against the Ammi.

But the Apes, though countless, were not so closely confederated as the
Men. They did not live together in large numbers, and the few groups that
did exist were not accustomed to act long together. In fact the Apes
hardly knew one another, so that they were unconscious alike of their
power and their weakness.

The forces of the two armies were, therefore, woefully unequal. On one
side was a host as countless as the Myrmidons, composed, indeed, of
motley groups, which might prove unmanageable in war, but which had to
fight in order to cohere at all, and to fight soon. On the other side was
a small, but skilled and disciplined body, more homogeneous and capable
of keeping to a fixed purpose. It was obvious, therefore, that if the
Apes should make a sudden attack they would overwhelm and extirpate the
Ammi; for then, all the hosts would take part, and, being impulsive,
would fight vigorously before having time to fall to pieces as a body.

It became as important, therefore, for the Ammi to now have a delay of
hostilities as it was before for the Lali. This fact, however, was not
known to the Ammi themselves, who, on account of the distance between the
two forces, were not aware of the reinforcements of the Lali.

“Let us proceed at once against the enemy,” said Koree, innocently
inviting his own destruction. “They have retreated so far that it may
take some time to find them.”

“That’s right,” said Pounder, “we should begin early so that Night may
not again overtake us before victory.”

“Come then,” said Koree, “this day will decide——”

Here there was a great surprise. As they were about to march to battle,
and to their own destruction, Sosee burst in upon them, followed by a
strange ape, both nearly breathless from running.

Koree uttered a shout of joy, and ran to meet her. Others seeing her
pursued, seized the ape that followed her, and were about to slay him
when Sosee caused them to desist.

“He is a friend, and has helped me to come hither,” she said.

And then, without regarding the expressions of joy on the part of Koree
and others over her return, she called out loudly:

“Retreat! Hide in the woods!—and be quick!”

This was startling to the Ammi, who believed they were on the eve of
complete victory.

She informed them of the countless hosts that had joined the Lali, who
expected to move immediately on the Ammi and destroy them entirely.

“If you can retreat long enough to delay the battle,” she said, “you may
be saved. I heard the counsels of the Lali chiefs, and they agree that
if they do not fight at once their forces can not be held together, but,
being composed of different tribes of Apes, unused to discipline, will
break up in confusion.”

Sosee then told of her escape, which was undertaken as the only means of
saving the Ammi, and accomplished at the risk of her own life.

She had been guarded, she said, by Ilo, Oboo and another, and so
could not escape but by the greatest cunning and good fortune. Ilo,
however, being engaged this day in the council of war, could not watch
her closely, while Oboo, having become interested in some female apes
belonging to the new comers, had wandered off after them, so that she was
left practically alone. Being thus at liberty she persuaded the remaining
guard,—a simple ape who did not understand his business,—to accompany
her in a race, when she adroitly led him to the camp of the Ammi, and so
escaped.

[Illustration: SOSEE WARNS THE AMMI.]

On hearing her story, Koree, overjoyed at his good fortune and Sosee’s,
said:

“There is reason in what she says. Let us retreat.”

For Koree, having now received back Sosee, did not care what became of
the war, but was ready for peace at any price.

Pounder, however, objected.

“I’m not afraid of all the Apes between here and sunrise,” he said, “and
I am for fighting them. I’ll kill the big ones with the little ones.”

Others, however, more prudent, agreed with Koree, and it was decided to
follow the advice of Sosee.

So the whole force of the Ammi prepared to move back into the Swamp.

“Let us take everything with us,” said Oko. “We may need it when we get
away.”

“Delay for nothing,” said Sosee, “or you will not get yourselves away.”

Soon, therefore, they started on their retreat; when Sosee remarked:

“I must now go back to the Lali.”

CHAPTER XXXII.

[Illustration]

These words of Sosee, “I must now go back to the Lali,” caused more
surprise to the Ammi than her sudden appearance among them had done.

“There is something unfathomable in that girl,” said Pounder. “We
undertook this war for her, and now, when we have obtained her, she wants
to go back to the enemy. I fear she has been won over to the Apes by
flattery, or a new lover, and comes back as a spy. Don’t let her return.”

“I wonder,” observed Koree to himself, “if she really has a new lover.”

“If I do not go back,” she said, “all I have told you will be in vain. If
the Lali, who do not yet know that I am here, should learn of my escape,
they will attack you at once, suspecting that I have communicated their
designs to you; and then all will be lost.”

“If you go,” replied Koree, “all will be lost at any rate—to me.”

And Koree insisted that see should not return.

“I do not believe her story,” said Pounder, “and I insist that we keep
our ground and also keep her. Otherwise she may carry back information to
the enemy.”

“I think too,” said Koree, “that we should not give up what we came for.
If we go back without her our escape will not be worth the making.”

Others thought it best to let her return, so that a dispute arose and
finally a quarrel. Koree, however, prevailed; and so, against her will,
she was compelled to fall in line and enter the Swamp with the rest.

But though Koree gained her possession he did not gain her consent. She
refused to be reconciled to him, and insisted during the retreat that she
be allowed to return.

“I know,” said Koree to himself, “that she has another lover. But she
will soon forget him, and I will keep her now that I have her. She will
be more easily won back to me in my presence than in my absence.”

But Sosee, thus forced to remain, proved an enemy to him rather than a
lover.

“I hate you,” she said, “and will never live with you if you do not let
me go back.”

“You will never live with me if I do,” he replied.

“I can escape again,” she said, “when we have saved the Ammi, and then I
will return to you.”

“If it required so much time and fighting,” he replied, “to get you once,
how much will it take to get you again?”

“If I escaped before without your aid, can I not do so again?”

“I am not sure you will want to come back, with all your ape lovers.”

“I shall not want to come back to you, if you do not let me go; but to my
mother and Orlee and the rest I will return. If you care for nothing but
your love you are unworthy of mine.”

But Koree was determined, and would not let her go.

She thus saw all her unselfish sacrifices about to be defeated by a
selfish lover.

The conversation of the Ammi now reverted to the probability of her story
and the advisability of their further retreat.

“Let us wait,” said Abroo, after they had gone some distance into the
Swamp, “till we see the result of the alliances formed by the Apes.”

“I will wait,” said Pounder, “only on condition that we return and
fight them. If what the girl says is true they will soon fall out among
themselves, so that even the cowardly need not fear them.”

“What is to be gained by fighting them at all,” asked Oko, “if they have
nothing that we want?”

“You greedy beast!” returned Pounder, savagely; “is it nothing to
vanquish the Lali? and if all the Monkeys of the forest are collected, is
it nothing to whip them all at once? It is base to make this retreat; and
I have a notion to smash the jaw of the fellow that proposed it.”

“This is not a retreat,” explained Abroo, calmly, “but a movement to
disable the enemy by delay. We shall be better able to fight when they
are less able to coöperate.”

And thus the talk went on for hours, when Koree suddenly interrupted it
with the question:

“Where is Sosee?”

CHAPTER XXXIII.

[Illustration]

The disappearance of Sosee without anybody knowing it was a new puzzle to
the Ammi. Was she spirited away by some supernatural power? or did she
simply drop out of line into the bushes? These were among the questions
asked.

“She is a spy,” persisted Pounder, “having first become a traitor.”

“If her story be true,” observed Abroo, “she thinks more of her people
than of her lover, and is a great heroine to thus sacrifice her love to
save her race.”

“Whatever be the facts,” said Koree, not appreciating this kind of
unselfishness, “let us search for her. If she be a spy she should not
return to the enemy, and if she be a heroine she should not be lost to
us.”

“In either case,” said Pounder, “you want to get her for yourself, and do
not care what becomes of the war.”

“Let us first make ourselves safe,” said Abroo, “and then talk of finding
her. In this great Swamp with its endless entanglement of bushes, we
could not find her any sooner than the Lali can find us; whereas if we
save ourselves from the danger she describes, we must retreat farther at
once.”

“I shall search for Sosee,” said Koree, “and will return to you only when
I find her.”

So saying Koree left the rest of the Ammi and started back to find his
beloved, taking several friends with him.

They were soon lost in the wilderness; but by the position of the sun
they kept their steps bent in the direction of the Lali.

“There is only one course that she could take,” said he; “whether she go
as a spy or to a lover, she will seek the Lali by the most direct route,
and in either case I want her, and want her soon; so let us head her off.”

Swift then through the wilds they pressed back, pushing aside the bushes,
wading in the marshes, jumping over fallen trees, and picking out a
possible route through an almost impassable country. When they came to
an open place, they reconnoitred. Now and then they met a serpent or
alligator, and continually they feared more savage beasts, whose cries
were heard around them.

“This is a terrible wilderness for Sosee to pass through,” observed
Koree, “but if she is going to meet a rival, or betray the Ammi, I don’t
know whether I want her to get through.”

“We will at least reach the Lali first,” said one of his companions.

“I am not sure of that,” replied Koree. “Sosee is swift of foot, and
finds her way better than anyone I know.”

Soon they came upon some straggling apes, but as these differed somewhat
from the Lali they paid little attention to them, thinking they were
chance hunters in the thickets.

These apes, however, were soon met so frequently, and finally became so
numerous, that Koree remarked:

“I wonder if they are not some of the new comers of which Sosee spoke.”

Presently he climbed a tree, from which he looked beyond the confines of
the Swamp, where he saw an innumerable swarm of apes, filling all the
country about the habitations of the Lali. So many animals he had never
before seen together. His worst suspicions were, therefore, confirmed.

“Sosee has, indeed, reported the truth,” he said; “such a multitude would
have overwhelmed the Ammi in one attack, and left nothing remaining of
the human race.”

Hurrying down, therefore, from the tree, he called on his comrades to
turn back to the Ammi.

“Let us return and take precautions for our safety,” he said; “soon those
apes will scatter, or kill one another off; no country can long support
such a number.”

“But what about Sosee?” asked his companions.

“We cannot find her in this Swamp,” replied Koree; “and, as her story of
the reinforcements of the Apes is true, the rest is not incredible, so
that her return to them may be necessary for our safety.”

Now, therefore, for the first time, did Koree appreciate the heroism of
Sosee; and the sacrifice of her lover seemed magnanimous when it was
clear that it was not for another lover.

They retraced their steps, therefore, and before night were again with
the main body of the Ammi, to whom they related what they had seen.

“Where is Sosee,” asked one.

“We have not seen her,” replied Koree, “but we found her true, which
is more important;” for Koree before his search had begun to doubt the
faithfulness of his beloved, which he was now glad to establish, even at
the expense of her possession.

As night settled down on the Ammi in the Swamp a great light appeared in
the north, an object of beauty and terror to them. The sky was illumined
with brilliant and changing rays, like a sunrise at midnight. The heavens
seemed to be on fire, and the conflagration to be approaching the earth.
It was one of those gigantic electric storms which swept over the ancient
world and vied with the earthquakes, mountain upheavals, and deluges of
the period, when the Earth still acted as a whole. Night and Day were
apparently in conflict, mixing great fields of light with alternate
streaks of darkness, and chasing each other over the whole heavens.

“What can this mean?” asked several at once.

“The Fire-monster is sweeping down upon us, as well as the Monkeys,”
answered one; “he has already seized the heavens.”

“It don’t mean any good,” said Gimbo; “Shoozoo is angry, and has sent his
winged Alligator to destroy us. I will get the dragon-fly which cured us
of the colic.”

Wearied, however, they soon sank to rest, and lying under an open sky,
which seemed all on fire, they slept, and their dreams that night were
disturbed equally by fears of the Aurora and of monkeys.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

[Illustration]

Several times during the night strange sounds were heard. Once they
were all aroused, thinking the Lali were upon them. At another time
they thought a wild beast was prowling near them, and again that they
heard sounds made by the Aurora Borealis. Near morning, when the first
glimmer of light appeared, there was a rush in the direction from which
came an ominous growl. One after another followed the leader to learn
the cause of it. In their haste the foremost stumbled on a huge living
object, which nearly frightened him to death; while the rest, in their
impetuosity, fell over the same thing, so that soon there was a great
heap of living humanity and wild confusion.

All wondered what had thrown them, and, to increase their wonderment, the
object did not move, but seemed indifferent to the tumbling which they
did upon him. They were afraid to approach, until the light should become
stronger; for they did not as yet have candles to guide them at night,
but had to wait for the day, or else grope in darkness. As it dawned,
however, and things became more distinguishable, one, more venturesome
than the rest, advanced, and, to his relief, found that it was Pounder,
who was rolled up in a heap, and lay before them dead drunk.

Among the roots dug up and eaten by the Ammi, was a species of mandrake,
which had a stupefying effect. Pounder had become fond of this root, or
rather of its effects, and he carried it about with him for occasional
indulgence. His addiction to the habit was, perhaps, the cause of his
quarrelsomeness; for he frequently quarrelled with others, although this
was, perhaps, the first case of well-defined spree known to humanity.

Several of the Ammi, thinking he was dead, rolled him over, and repeated
the rolling several times.

“He is only sleeping,” said one; “see how he breathes;” and they shook
him to wake him.

Presently his eyes opened, when another exclaimed:

“He is neither dead nor asleep, but sick; perhaps he is dying. Call
Gimbo.”

Soon Gimbo, who was doctor, priest and prophet, all in one, approached
with his dragon-fly and long-necked pumpkin, and, after a brief
examination, in which he looked mysteriously wise, said:

“It comes from the colic;” and, with these words, he seized the neck of
the pumpkin, and with the big end pounded the stomach of his patient,
adding: “This will fetch the colic out of him.”

Pounder first grunted, then groaned, and at last opened his eyes.

Gimbo, seeing this effect, congratulated himself, and went on pounding,
saying, “He is coming out all right.”

Pounder who neither understood nor enjoyed this treatment, raised himself
half up, and, to the surprise of all, dealt Gimbo a powerful blow with
his fist, saying, “Get out you old four-footed ape with your big pumpkin!”

He then sank back in his stupor, but placed his hand on his stomach for
protection.

Gimbo, picking himself up, said:

“The disease acts strangely; but he is gaining strength, and will soon be
well.”

He did not recur to the pumpkin treatment, however, but relied henceforth
on the dragon-fly for a cure, which he applied at a distance.

The Ammi now gathered about Pounder, and, with astonishment on their
faces, contemplated the change that had come over him. The mightiest of
their number was seen lying before them the weakest and silliest. It
disgusted them that he should so put himself out of his own power, as to
be at the mercy of the smallest monkey, and especially that he who could
fight so bravely should grin and puke so contemptibly.

But these discussions did not interest Pounder, who slept on unmindful of
his glory or his disgrace.

About this time the Ammi were again heard complaining of the cold, which
had been rapidly increasing since the snow storm mentioned, and they cast
about for devices to reduce its discomforts.

At night they sought the leeward side of trees and hills; they also went
into caves and huddled up closely to keep warm. But this did not suffice.
They were cold both by day and night, and every one sought other means of
warming.

From the habit of covering themselves with leaves when sleeping, the
thought was suggested, that if they could surround themselves with leaves
during the day they might be more comfortable at all times.

“The difficulty is to make the leaves stick together,” said Abroo; “let
us fasten them by their stems, or string them on blades of grass.”

Soon a garment of leaves and grass was woven in this way, which was the
beginning of clothing and of the vast dry-goods interest of the world.

Up to this time the Men, like the Apes, had been naked. They had found no
use for clothing; the climate was warm, and the feeling of shame had not
yet entered their breasts. They were covered with hair, which grew longer
since they had come north; and, though this furnished some protection,
and was highly appreciated since the cold weather set in, it was not
sufficient for their comfort. Some had longer hair than others, and so
stood the change better, while those of little or short hair often fell
sick and died of colds, rheumatism, and other winter complaints. The
invention of clothing, however, equalized their condition again, so that
long hair was deemed of no special advantage.

The leaf-garments, however, did not long satisfy them. They could not
make a fabric of such materials that would stand the rough usage to
which it was subjected. In their running, climbing and other violent
exercises the wreaths broke or became detached, so that it was difficult
to keep them on. One’s whole suit sometimes fell off in an instant,
leaving him in his skin and hair.

“Bark, I think, would do better than leaves,” said Koree, who had made
himself a suit of the inner rind of a tree. He found this so rough,
however, that it soon wore off the hair and skin in places, so that he
looked like a horse galled by the harness.

“Pound the bark to make it soft,” said Watch-the-girls, who had made a
neat garment for herself from well-selected strips of bark, from which
she had removed the rough spots.

“Skins would keep us warm; and they are soft,” said another woman, who
had placed about her shoulders the hide of a sheep which had been used as
a receptacle for darts.

This was an unfortunate discovery for the animals. For in a little while
the Ammi, finding that skins were more desirable than anything else as a
protection from cold, sought animals for their skins, and killed more for
this purpose than they had before killed for food.

The use of clothing in time became general, and the Ammi learned the
important lesson that they were independent of the weather, and could
carry their climate about with them, making it to order.

The use of clothing, however, developed into a dangerous luxury. They
soon came to have preferences, not only on account of warmth and
softness, but on account of appearance. Bright colors were chosen as
most desirable, and those were more in esteem who dressed well. Much of
their time was accordingly given to making garments, especially among the
women, and many bits of decoration were in time added, so that pride and
art were soon developed in dress.

Pounder, however, always despised dress, and would not put on anything
whatever; and several others, who admired his strength and bravery, were
led to follow his example. Gimbo said it was wrong to dress, and that
if people would only keep on all fours they would not need clothes; so
he, as long as he lived, went naked and on all fours, no matter what the
weather or the occasion.

But the men went on in their vanity about dress, until they soon wore
more wool than the sheep; and Gimbo complained that something was wrong
when each animal did not wear its own skin.

Fire-tamer said they might keep warm by getting a wood-eating animal and
keeping it in the camp.

“While I kept mine,” he said, “I was warm. When he shook himself the Cold
fled affrighted, and would not come near again until he disappeared.”

“That’s worse than clothes,” said Gimbo; “don’t bring it here, or we will
all be killed and eaten up.”

“The beast is liable to get loose,” said another, “and attack us any
moment. We have seen what he did at the volcano and in the forest.”

“I will get a young one,” said Fire-tamer, who thought a small fire was
an immature or half-grown animal, and that it could be easily managed.

But the Ammi were afraid, and would not allow the beast to be brought to
the camp, dead or alive; and so they went on shivering, and it took them
some time to shiver into sense.

CHAPTER XXXV.

[Illustration]

The next day Fire-tamer, who had been hunting in the Swamp, returned to
the Ammi, with a piece of burning wood. Having seen a tree struck by
lightning, which was nearly consumed, and thinking he understood the
habits of the beast, he raked in the ashes till he found this brand.
Bringing it with him, he thought, as the fire curled on the end of it,
like a snake, that he had caught a wood-eating animal.

“There he comes with a little one,” said Koree, as Fire-tamer approached
the Ammi. Gimbo was horrified, and ran away. The rest, though prohibiting
its introduction the day before, had suffered so much during the night
from cold, that they were now willing to give it a trial, which Gimbo
thought very inconsistent in them.

Fire-tamer laid it down, when, to the surprise of all, it did not run
away. He then brought leaves to feed it, when it flamed up, or became
“mad,” as they thought. None, however, would come near enough to feel its
effects; when they said it was of no use as a warmer.

[Illustration: THE WOOD-EATING ANIMAL IN THE CAMP OF THE AMMI.]

“Wait till he shakes himself,” said Fire-tamer, “and you will get a
fanning from his wings that will warm you all over.”

He then fed the monster with brush, when to the surprise of all, who
now approached with confidence, it ate greedily, and soon warmed them
perceptibly.

“See how he cracks the bones with his teeth,” said Pounder, in admiration
of its strength, as the fire crackled and the sparks flew.

“See what a dust he kicks up,” said another, as he observed the smoke.

A spark at this moment flew out and lighted on Pounder, who gave a growl,
and said the beast had snapped at him. He could scarcely be restrained
from attacking it with his fists.

All were gratified, however, at the warmth produced; for the day was
cold, and they had not on their clothing, or else did not know how to use
it. They accordingly huddled about the fire, and soon came to regard it
as a necessity.

“How can we keep it from running away?” asked one, who thought of their
misfortune when they should be without it.

“How can we take it with us when we move?” asked another. “I would not
like to take hold of it or lead it.”

“Fire-tamer can catch another,” answered Koree, “for he is skilled as a
hunter of this monster, as well as a manager of it.”

They wondered most at the voracity of the beast, who ate all the brush
and logs they could carry to him.

“He grows bigger at once on what he feeds,” said one, as the fire
increased with the supply of several trees; “see how fat he is getting,
and how he struggles at his meals. One would think the tree is alive at
which he is eating, and that he is fighting to kill it, as when a tiger
eats an alligator.”

When the fire died down, and it was not convenient to get more wood,
Cocoanut-scooper threw in some vegetables and fruits, saying:

“I wonder if he will eat these. He seems, like a hog, to eat everything.”

But the fire continued to become less, and all were surprised that it was
fastidious about its food, and would eat nothing but wood.

More wood was, accordingly, brought, and soon the monster had reached its
full size again.

“It does not pay to keep this animal,” said Oko; “it takes all our time
to carry food to him. Loose him that, like the urus, he may wander
through the forest and feed himself.”

“He will eat the whole forest and us too, if he gets loose,” replied
Fire-tamer.

Several approached so near that they got burned, so that many doubted the
utility of the beast on account of its danger. One who got a whiff of
smoke in the face thought he was being attacked, and discharged a dart at
the monster.

“I am afraid to sleep at night with this brute in the camp,” said one;
“he will eat us all before morning.”

“When he appeared last night in the sky,” observed another, referring to
the Aurora, “he did not harm us.”

The people, however, were divided, some wanting to get rid of him, and
others to keep him. When it got warm the beast became unpopular, which
was about the middle of the day; but as it cooled off toward night, he
was more in favor.

“He must be thirsty,” said Pounder; “let us bring water and give him a
drink.”

So saying he went to a pool, and, filling a gourd, poured water on the
fire, which had become low from lack of fuel. The fire immediately went
out, to the surprise of all.

“He hates water and has run into his hole,” said Pounder.

“Let us dig him out,” said Koree, who thought he was a kind of woodchuck
that could be easily unearthed.

On examination, however, they found no hole into which he could have
crawled, and so gave up digging.

“He will come out of a volcano soon,” said Fire-tamer, “and I shall watch
for him in the mountains.”

Gimbo was profoundly thankful, however, that he was gone. He had
worshipped him as a god out of fear; but now that water destroyed him,
he worshipped the water instead, as a greater spirit, and he was nearly
converted to the religion of the Lali, who had great faith in the power
of water, and especially of the water of the great Swamp, in which the
winged Alligator dwelt.

As evening came, however, with its dampness, they again suffered, and
doubt came with their discomforts, and they slept uncertain whether fire
should be the companion of their lives.

And the night was full of stars and Gimbo of fleas, and as they passed
each other on the way of time the problems of life were unfolding to
reason.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

[Illustration]

The next day the Ammi were startled at the sight of a strange ape, which
was at first taken for one of the Lali, and they thought that the rest
would soon be upon them. He was soon seen, however, to be of a different
species, and so was allowed to pass unmolested. Next a whole group
of apes appeared; but, as they were small and apparently peaceable,
they produced no consternation. It was deemed best, however, to make a
reconnoisance; and so Pounder and Cocoanut-scooper each climbed a tree to
examine the surrounding country.

They reported the Swamp full of apes, which wandered about in groups
apparently without purpose. There were generally a male and three or four
females together.

These were some of the immigrants which had recently come from the
north, and were going south to escape the cold. They had remained a few
days with the Lali, and were now scattering in all directions. The Lali
themselves, they said, had all determined to migrate.

The Ammi, being therefore relieved of their fears, now determined to
return to the battle-field. For, as the reënforcements of the Lali had
dispersed, they thought they could safely fight them again.

They accordingly started back toward the Lali with renewed courage. The
cold was still increasing, and the waters of the Swamp through which
they had come were frozen over. For most of the way they walked on ice,
which made their return easy. They found some animals and birds along the
route, which had been frozen to death, of which they ate as they went,
and from which they re-supplied their stores.

“The cold has made a bridge for us across the waters,” said Koree, “and
we can now walk where we before waded.”

“True,” said Oko, “but it has taken away the water, and we shall have no
fish, and not even anything to drink.”

“It has turned the water into stone,” observed another, “and the land
has all been changed into a white foam, so that we shall hereafter have
neither land nor water.”

The situation was critical indeed. The whole earth seemed about to be
taken from them, or else turned into a new substance, cold, hard and
forbidding.

“What can we do,” asked Oko, “but migrate like the Lali?”

“Splash!” “Splash!” “Splash!”

Such were the sounds now heard in quick succession, and accompanying them
were cries, growls and great confusion.

The ice had broken and let some of them into the water. Pounder,
Cocoanut-scooper, Abroo, Oko, and others were floundering in the waves,
some swimming and others wading to their chins. The whole army was thrown
into a panic. The earth seemed to have given way beneath them, or what
they supposed to be new formed solid rock.

[Illustration: THE AMMI BREAKING THROUGH THE ICE.]

“It doesn’t look as if the water had given out,” growled Pounder, with a
savage glance at Oko.

“I wish it had,” observed Oko, as he tried to keep his head above the
floating ice.

A great scramble now ensued to regain the land, or a footing on solid
ice. Several got to fighting in the water, and there was a great
splashing and series of duckings.

Those who got out stood shivering in the snow, and occasionally tried to
help out others; but most were afraid to go near the place of danger.

When all had regained solid footing it became their chief care not to
break in again. They had evidently met a new danger greater than the
Lali. It was the water of the Swamp, which they had shortly before
bewailed as having gone forever. They moved more cautiously, therefore,
testing the strength of the ice as they proceeded.

Before leaving the scene of the catastrophe, however, Oko, seeking to
turn their misfortune to profit, picked up some pieces of floating ice,
and proposed to take them along.

“These rocks,” he said, “will make good missiles. By using them on the
Lali, we need not throw away our cocoanuts.”

He accordingly filled a skin pouch with them, and carried some in his
arms, while others followed his example. They soon found them, however,
not only heavy and bulky, but having a new inconvenience. They imparted a
sense of discomfort, now know as cold, which, being unknown to them, was
dreaded as mysterious, like the effects of fire.

After marching awhile they were rejoined by Fire-tamer, who had gone in
search of another “wood-eating beast.” He was successful in his search,
and his game was acceptable to the Ammi, who had learned to appreciate
the beast in cold weather. Even Gimbo was secretly glad, though he had to
protest, from force of habit, that they were introducing a demon among
them, and that they might as well be destroyed by the cold as eaten by
the hot monster.

They now all collected brush, and soon there was a roaring fire on the
ice, at which they dried themselves and planned their future movements.
The pieces of ice which Oko and others had carried for weapons, and which
they had laid by the fire to warm, were found to have disappeared. They
had melted and run away. Oko thought somebody had stolen them, and he got
into a fight with Pounder over the matter, when finally a halt melted
piece was seen to be turning into water. They then charged the theft to
the wood-eating monster, which they thought was devouring their rocks.

“He is worse than a hog,” said Oko, “to eat both wood and stone.”

They observed at this time that neither apes nor wild beasts approached
them while they sat by the fire, but turned off at the sight of it with
fear; so that Fire-tamer remarked:

“If we could always have this animal with us, no other danger would come
near.”

It was sometime after this, however, before men took to building fires as
a protection against wild beasts.

They observed also that some of the fruits and roots which
Cocoanut-scooper had tried to warm by placing them near the fire (for
they were frozen) became scorched, or boiled in their own juice, and
thereby much changed in taste. They found them better for the change;
so that they soon sought to do by design what they first did by
accident—prepare their food by fire—which was the beginning of the art of
cooking.

They also discovered that their food, thus treated, was more tender and
wholesome, so that they could eat many things which were before too hard
or tough, and they thereby greatly increased their food, which was a
matter of importance at a time when it was being reduced by the cold.

They also observed that when the fire was burning at night, it illumined
the space about them, making a kind of artificial day. Night fled from
it, as well as Cold and wild beasts, and stayed away as long as it
remained. By its means they could see without sun, or moon or Aurora
Borealis; and to overcome darkness in this way seemed the greatest
triumph yet made by man or beast.

Taking a stick one night which had been lighted at a heap of coals,
Fire-tamer was enabled, by carrying it around, to find a wolf skin which
Koree had lost, and which could not be found in the dark. This opened the
eyes of the Ammi, and from that moment they began to use fire for light,
as well as heat; and that stick was the first candle of the human race.
That day could be carried about in small pieces seemed astounding.

Through this discovery Fire-tamer gradually became the most important
man among the Ammi. Neither the strength of Pounder, nor the courage
of Koree, nor the wisdom of Abroo impressed the populace so much as
the mastery by this man of the wood-eating beast. He was appealed to
in all matters relating to fire. No other would venture to manage the
animal. Fire-tamer came at length to be thought sacred. The beast, it
was believed, dared not touch him. And Fire-tamer artfully used this
mystery to strengthen his influence among the Men. He purposely kept them
in ignorance and fear of the monster. He meant to keep control of this
interest, which he had the wisdom to perceive was soon to become the most
important one among the Ammi. He had, in short, a “corner” on fire, and
meant to keep it.

The awe in which Fire-tamer was thus held, and the influence which he
had in consequence among the people, excited the jealousy of Koree and
other leaders, who saw their own star declining. Several quarrels ensued,
and there was a crisis, when a happy solution was reached by making
Fire-tamer a sort of high priest, whose business it was to have charge
of the wood-eating monster and keep it burning, in return for which
distinction he was to abandon his ambition to control the Ammi in other
matters. His office was the predecessor of that of the vestal virgins,
and his charge—fire—became worshipped as a deity, while he, as keeper of
it, became the chief ruler of men in religious matters.

While they were discussing these interests, and the reciprocal bounds of
church and state were being first laid off, there arose a great commotion
among them.

“Splash!” “Splash!” “Splash!”

Such were the sounds that were now heard a second time; but the terror
was greater than before, and such a scene of confusion had never yet been
known to men.

The fire had melted the ice, which gave way, and men, fire and all went
down into the water. One over another they tumbled, and, amid smoking
logs and sissing embers, struggled with one another and with the floating
ice. The fire was put out, and with it went the prestige of Fire-tamer,
at least for awhile.

Some thought the wood-eating monster had taken a plunge and was running
away with them. They expected to be carried under the ice and into the
ground; and they were much relieved when they found that the monster had
gone alone and left them behind, and, as they gradually regained the
shore, or rather the firm ice, they presented such a mass of shivering
and dripping humanity as had not been seen till that day.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

[Illustration]

The first impulse of the Ammi, on recovering their safety and their
senses, was to kill Fire-tamer who was thought responsible for the
disaster. He was supposed to know the habits of the beast, and was deemed
negligent in allowing them to be exposed to such a calamity. Pounder
especially favored his death, and proposed to inflict it himself, as he
had been twice submerged that day, and was specially out of humor.

“I knew,” said Gimbo, “that it would come to this; but you never take the
advice of an old man. I don’t walk on four feet for nothing.”

What had become of the beast, was the next question.

“Shall we go after it?” asked one.

Another said: “Let us rather run away from it, and kill Fire-tamer if he
brings another.”

“It would be a good thing to have,” said Koree, “now that we are so cold
and wet.”

“As soon as it should dry us,” replied Pounder, “it would plunge us again
in the water.”

Fire-tamer was puzzled, and it was well that he had nothing to say; for
the Ammi were not in a condition to listen to him. He and his beast were
alike in disfavor, and so he waited for a cold day for his vindication.

The Ammi proceeded on their way, but were terribly afflicted with the
cold, which kept steadily increasing. Their feet and hands suffered
most, for which they had as yet provided no covering. Walking through
the snow and on the ice they had frequently frozen feet. Osa, a young
and pretty girl, admired by many, was completely overcome, and fell back
in the march to die. Aloo, her lover, sought means of taking her along;
but, after carrying her awhile in his arms, and enlisting others to aid
him, he gave up exhausted, but stayed with her while the rest moved
on, resolved to die also. As nothing more has been heard of them it is
believed that they perished together.

As the Ammi marched forward, they heard dreadful reports from the Apes
which they met, of the cold of the north. The whole country was covered
with snow; the rivers were frozen; the trees were dead; the animals had
left the country, or were perishing; great mountains of ice had formed
in the valleys; all fruit had disappeared, and the roots were under the
snow and could not be dug out of the hard ground. In the famine which
accompanied this change animals fell to eating one another, not only the
dead but the living, so that when the survivors reached the south they
were much thinned out.

“It is foolish,” said Oko, on hearing these reports, “to go back to fight
the Lali. Let us rather return home, gather up what is left, and go south
also.”

“Not till Sosee is recovered,” said Koree. “Neither Cold, nor Snow, nor
Famine shall make us desist from war. I mean to march through all these
to where she is, and to take her from the Lali even though they fight
twice as hard as the Storm.”

“She has, no doubt, left long since with some lover among the Lali, and
is now in the south,” replied Oko.

This was a more dreadful thought to Koree than that she should be
perishing in the north. He accordingly gave a savage look and growl at
Oko, and replied:

“Whether she be in the snows or in the arms of a lover, I shall rescue
her.”

He accordingly urged the army to quicken its pace, although to do so,
they had to leave many perishing ones to die. He feared more that they
would not find the Lali than they would, and so hurried to overtake those
whom he had shortly before hurried to escape from.

Watch-the-girls opposed this excessive speed, on account of the many
females in her charge who could not keep up, and whom she was unwilling
to abandon in the snow.

“If we go so fast,” she said, “we will have no forces left when we reach
the Lali, and will have to fight them with our leaders only.”

“I can whip them all myself,” said Pounder, who was eager for the fight,
and thought little of those who perished, whether of the enemy or of his
own people.

Koree, too, urged them to quicker speed, lest the battle, the Lali and
Sosee should all escape, and they themselves should be compelled to
return without glory or the girl. “If I must go south”, he said, “I want
the company of Sosee, and if I must die in the cold, I want to die with
her.”

And so his tenderness for one became cruelty to many; and he led the
forces hastily to the seat of war, while the girls and the weak fell
back, unable to keep up. Watch-the-girls fell back with them, though
abundantly able to go on. She said she would die with her charge, or else
bring them up to the front later on.

And so some remained behind suffering, while others went forward
suffering. Watch-the-girls was equally divided in her attentions between
caring for the dying and getting forward the living.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

[Illustration]

Meanwhile the Lali, to whom we will now return, had been passing through
a crisis no less serious than that of their enemy. After failing to
overtake the Ammi, whom they had prepared to overwhelm, as we have
related, by amassing against them the fugitives from the north, they
returned discouraged to their camp, there to encounter discontent among
their allies, and finally division. They were even threatened at one time
with extermination by the new-comers, which they averted by inducing the
latter to pass on. The allies accordingly began an exodus, and were soon
out of sight.

But they devoured, before going, nearly all the means of the Lali, and
carried off what they could not eat, so that, with the coming of the
snow and cold, the Lali were left in destitution. This was relieved
by catching some of the animals that had come from the north, and by
gathering those that had perished in the snow. They also learned to eat,
as all do in time of war or famine, many new kinds of food, and gathered
leaves and sprigs, which till then had not been tasted.

The flight of the Ammi before the allied Apes, which has already been
described, proved a serious loss to the Lali. These had hoped, on
conquering the Ammi, to take possession of Cocoanut Hill, and the stores
amassed there; and, had they succeeded, they would have had enough, both
for themselves and their allies, for some time, and could have lived in
comfort.

When, accordingly, it was discovered that Sosee was the cause of the
flight of the Ammi, and so of the misfortunes of the Lali, they resolved
to put her to death.

Several attempts were at once made at this, but singular obstacles arose
from the complications of the Apes with her, which secured her protection
by starting fights among themselves.

One, Hang-from-the-vines, who had led the combined forces in search of
the escaping Ammi, first flew at her, and would have torn her to pieces,
but for the intervention of Ilo and Oboo, who had her in charge. Ilo
seized him by the throat, while Oboo snatched her away to a place of
safety. Hang-from-the-vines now turned in his rage to Ilo, and these
two fought together, and both received bites and scratches; but, as Ilo
fought for love and Hang-from-the-vines for revenge, Ilo was successful,
though the other was the greater warrior.

Ilo marched proudly from his victory over Hang-from-the-vines, expecting
to receive the admiration of the people, and especially of Sosee, who had
been an indifferent lover.

Great was his disappointment, therefore, when Oboo claimed the
girl. “For,” said Oboo, “I rescued her when about to be slain by
Hang-from-the-vines, capturing her from you both, as you had captured her
from the Ammi in the first place. If she was yours then, she is mine now,
and I will keep her.”

This was too much for Ilo. Transported by rage he next sprang at
Oboo; when a fiercer fight ensued than when they both fought against
Hang-from-the-vines. Hair and blood flew; growls and bites came from both
mouths; and, as when the Wind and Snow had recently engaged in battle,
these mighty chiefs filled the air with confusion and wide-resounding
thunders.

But as Ilo fought for his one love, and Oboo for one of many, Ilo was
successful, though he had not fought so often, or won so many victories
as Oboo. He accordingly took possession of Sosee, and, crowned with two
triumphs, hoped to enjoy her forever.

But Oboo, being defeated, next resolved, in his double loss of honor and
lover, to effect her destruction. Whom he could not win he would kill.
This was more, however, from hatred of Ilo than anger at Sosee. He could
not endure that another should take a woman, especially from him; and
so he demanded her death as a punishment to Ilo, though ostensibly for
treachery to the whole. Joining, therefore, in a conspiracy with one whom
he had recently joined in a fight, he proposed to Hang-from-the-vines
that they kill her whom he had just rescued from death.

But Hang-from-the-vines was now in a changed mood, being unwilling to
gratify his recent enemy even by his own success.

“As you would not let me slay her,” he said, “you shall perpetuate your
victory as a defeat, and see her another’s. Preventing her death when she
was false to all, you shall not get me to kill her now because she is
false only to you.”

Oboo, however, was resolved on her death, at least for the moment, and he
easily enlisted others in his design. Oola wanted her to die because she
had won from her the affections of Oboo (which many others, however, had
since obtained). Other women desired her death because she had been their
rival for several lovers, and still others merely because she was pretty
and popular; so that, between her charms and her offenses, she was in
double peril. All, however, urged as a pretext for her death, not their
real reason, but the excuse of her treachery; so that the public welfare
had to bear the odium of their private jealously. Only those having no
interest in her death—the great masses—wanted it on the ground which all
alleged.

Her death, however, was ordered, and she was brought for execution before
the assembled Apes. Several were impatient to tear her to pieces. Oola,
fearing that others, by dispatching her, would deprive her of a coveted
revenge, made a pass at her, but was restrained by a male ape who had
begun to feel an attachment for her. A further delay was caused by a
priest who insisted on sprinkling the scene with Swamp water, which, like
the return of the ship from Delos, required time, during which, like
Socrates, she could still live.

[Illustration: SOSEE’S STRATEGY.]

Meanwhile she looked around for some means of escape. The chances for
this were small, as the last moment had now arrived; but her extremity
made action of some kind necessary.

While, accordingly, the Apes awaited the signal for her death, and the
silence was solemnly intense, she suddenly sprang to her feet, and, with
great animation, pointed to the sky, accompanying her movement with a
shout.

Every eye turned from her, and fixed its gaze on the sky. Those who had
been most intently looking at her, and expected to make the first rush
upon her, were the first to look away, and wildest in casting about their
heads to see what was the matter. There was an instant of general panic;
never did so many monkey heads move so rapidly, or in so many directions.
Nothing was to be seen, which made the search more intense. Many looked
more at the sky than they had ever done before, and some actually
believed they saw something, and were overcome by fright; for when people
see nothing they apprehend a great mystery.

While all eyes were thus fixed on the sky, Sosee, summoning her strength
and fleetness, started to run. Swift as the wind, and as noiselessly, she
passed away. She went in the direction opposite to that in which they
were looking.

For awhile her movements were not observed, but were supposed to be part
of the panic caused by the dash of all to see something; and it was some
seconds before any understood that their captive had broken away, and was
running for her life.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

[Illustration]

The recapture of Sosee was an easy matter, though she had diverted from
her the attention of all before attempting her escape; and several,
standing near, sprang after her when they recovered from their surprise.

These would have instantly seized her but for Ilo and Oboo. These two
lovers and rivals, notwithstanding their ill success with her, were at
heart unwilling that she should die, hoping each that he might, by some
means, still possess her. Instinctively, therefore, they interrupted the
pursuit.

This was less, however, because they intended her escape, than because
they each resolved that the other should not have her. It was also
because they wanted no one else to have her; for her captor would be
entitled to possess her, and, in the Ape customs, recapture counted
as much as original capture, (since one allowing a female to escape
forfeited his title to her).

The interruption of the pursuit, however, was only temporary. For the
whole body of apes, recovering from their surprise, now rushed after
her. Oboo and Ilo joined in the pursuit, but still took more care that
others should not capture her, than that they themselves should. For they
feared their own success as liable to defeat their purpose. The hope
of each was that she would enter the Swamp, where the other pursuers,
becoming scattered, could not overtake her, when he, (Oboo or Ilo), might
pursue her alone, and make her his own. These lovers, therefore, while
running faster than the rest, managed to stumble in the way of those
nearest her, and especially in the way of each other; so that Sosee was
soon gaining on them all.

But her fleetness was of small avail, as also the rivalry of her
pursuers. The Lali closed upon her from three sides. Had she kept running
in a straight line toward the Swamp she might have escaped; but, just as
she had gained so much on them that she was nearly out of danger, she
changed her course, and, veering to one side, ran almost into the arms
of her pursuers. It was now a matter of only a minute when she would be
caught; and if taken she would be instantly killed, for the more savage
rabble, and not her lovers, were, by this turn, brought nearest her. Why
she made such a dangerous detour was understood by none but herself.

Her pursuers were, therefore, confident, and their concern was now less
about whether she should be captured than about who should capture her;
for the victor would be entitled to possess her—or kill her; so that,
instead of being a race with her, it became a race with one another.

A great bearded gorilla, after a spirited struggle to reach the front,
leaped ahead of the rest, like a racer on the home-stretch, and, with
his hair flying in the wind, and his jaws wide open, was on the point
of seizing her. Panting and furious he stopped for a last spring, which
would have both captured her and felled her to the ground; when a shout
arose from the Lali, which, being a shout of terror, made him stop and
look before leaping.

There was abundant cause for this delay. For suddenly out of the edge of
the Swamp, which Sosee now reached, came in full view the forces of the
Ammi with Koree at their head.

Sosee had dimly descried these a moment before, which was the cause of
her change of course; for she started to meet them by the most direct
route, knowing that if she could maintain her pace but a minute longer
she would be safe.

The great ape who was close at her heels stopped at the sight of the
Ammi, which gave Sosee a moment more to live, and in that moment she
rushed into the arms of Koree and her friends.

CHAPTER XL.

[Illustration]

Sosee was, therefore, safe for the present.

But the pursuit did not end with the escape of the fugitive. The momentum
of the Apes was too great to let them stop, even when they wanted to.
They accordingly rushed on before they had time to think, and fell upon
the ranks of the Ammi, where their race was suddenly changed into a fight.

Not knowing the numbers of the Ammi, and so not fearing them, the Lali
commenced, before they had yet time to comprehend their situation, to
make the best of it. Turning their eagerness into rage, they resolved
to kill both Sosee and all her race; so that scarcely had she reached a
place of safety when she found that she had carried danger into the ranks
of her friends.

The impact of the Apes on the Men was resistless. It astonished them as
much by its shock as the Men had astonished the Apes by their appearance.

The Ammi were thrown into a panic, and would have taken to flight had
they known where to run, (for the Apes were enclosing them on all
sides). All thoughts of Sosee were forgotten by both sides, and even by
herself. Koree had no time to congratulate himself on her rescue, or the
Lali to reproach themselves for her escape. It was a matter of life and
death to all, and again the fate of the human race hung in the balance.

None fight so well as those who can do nothing else. The Apes, having got
into battle by chance, had to fight to get out; while the Ammi, drawn in
reluctantly, had to eagerly fight back. Both parties, therefore, fought
fiercely, who would gladly have quit altogether had they only known how.
But, having entered a battle which neither could abandon, both felt that
their only escape was through victory. Both therefore fought each other
fiercely as the only way to a mutual peace.

Dreadful, therefore, was the clash of fists and nails and teeth. The air
was filled with cries and the ground with blood. Countless bodies lay in
the snow, and many who escaped freezing, now met slaughter. Death seemed
about to settle like a cloud on both forces, and to cover them all with
one common shroud.

The Lali were both more numerous and more desperate. Having gained an
impetus communicated by their chase, they had every advantage. The Ammi,
though more skilled and better armed, were so taken by surprise that they
could use neither skill nor arms; so that, like the Apes, they fought
chiefly with their fists and jaws.

“Let us retreat to the Swamp,” said Koree, who saw his forces yielding at
all points.

“They won’t let us,” said Abroo, who knew that the Apes, being close,
would follow them, and prevent a second escape.

The only problem thus was how to retreat. There seemed no way of giving
up the fight any more than of continuing it. Any sign of weakening would
encourage the enemy to rally and destroy them all.

They continued, therefore, to fight against hope, but saw that even
battle would soon end them, since only a few now remained to either
escape or be killed.

Oko proposed that they all run, and take each his chance of escape. “By
regaining the Swamp,” he said, “we may be saved by hiding in the bushes.”

Abroo remarked that if they did so the women would be captured, and that
men without women were not worth saving.

“Besides,” said Koree, “if we hide in the Swamp, they will track us in
the snow.”

“There is nothing to do but fight,” said Pounder, who exhibited great
courage during all the encounter. “Let us make one desperate effort, and
kill as many Apes as we can before dying.”

This seemed their only hope, which was born of despair; and they resolved
to make a strong effort though in weakness.

Before exhausting that hope in their own extinguishment, Koree looked
sadly upon Sosee, and uttered these words as a last farewell:

“Bitter it is to die now that I have rescued you, and when it would be
so sweet to live. But it is more glorious to die after success than if
you were still in the hands of the Lali. Since, therefore, we cannot live
together, let us die together.”

Sosee, however, heeded not his despairing words, but continued fighting.
For scarcely had she gained the ranks of the Ammi when she turned on her
pursuers, and was one of the fiercest combatants against them.

“Rally to the fight,” she said, “and don’t give up to die while you have
power to kill.”

Her resolution was contagious, so that new spirit was infused into
the Ammi; and, had there been more for the contagion to spread among,
her words would have proved their salvation; but it was an enthusiasm
imparted to the helpless.

While, therefore, they looked to see the enemy rush upon them, bearing
with them Death, they were in a mind to receive this double enemy with
fortitude.

Suddenly a commotion was observed among the Lali. Apparent consternation
seized them, and they seemed about to retire from the field at the moment
of their complete victory.

The cause of this consternation was that reënforcements had suddenly come
to the Ammi, and from a quarter least expected. It was not Night that
had opportunely settled down upon them, as it had before upon the Lali
when it saved them from destruction. Nor was it a blinding Snow that beat
in their faces; as if the skies had come down to attack them by storm.
Instead of the Heavens it was the Earth that furnished their last relief.

Watch-the-girls, who had fallen back, as we have related, and could not
keep up in the march through the Swamp, because of the cold and fatigue
of her troops, now appeared in sight with her female warriors. Left to
die these heroines had fought their fate and conquered the elements, and
they now came up to succor those who had forsaken them, thus offering
salvation in return for abandonment. They were first seen by the Lali,
whose faces, in fighting, were turned toward them; and this sight was the
cause of their confusion.

Out from the Swamp and into the field these women rushed. Fatigue had
left them for a while, and the cold had loosed its grasp. Courage took
the place of weakness, and they rushed into battle without thought of
their condition. Those who were thought not strong enough to live were
now found able to fight.

As when Bluecher appeared to the Allies at Waterloo, and turned the
fortunes of war, so Watch-the-girls came at the critical moment, and,
with new troops, entered the fight and brought back hope.

Weak as they were after their long march and privation, these women
fought with bravery, and persisted to the end. The Lali, who had already
seized the victory, now released their grasp, and, falling in great
numbers, laid hold on Despair instead. Thrown first into confusion, and
then into rout, they found it impossible to longer continue the contest,
and so fled from the field.

Thus the victory was won by the Ammi, and the human race was saved.

CHAPTER XLI.

[Illustration]

The Lali being defeated, the next question with the Ammi was what to
do with them. Pounder proposed that they follow them up and kill them
all. Oko seconded this, so far as to follow them up, but suggested that
instead of killing them, they simply take what they have, and let them
go; for his idea of war was robbery.

“Whether they be dead or not,” he said, “does not matter provided we have
their booty.”

Koree having obtained Sosee, the object for which he went to the war, was
willing to abandon the conflict, and return home without anything else.

“There is nothing to fight for now,” he said; “and nothing that we can
get here will be as good as what we can enjoy at home.”

Sosee seconded this proposal, having learned to love the Lali
notwithstanding her captivity among them; and she did not wish to add to
their distress.

“And let us go quickly,” she said, “or Oboo and Ilo will find means of
attacking us again.”

This suggestion about his rivals confirmed Koree in his conviction that
it was best to return home.

After further consultation it was finally agreed to return at once to
Cocoanut Hill.

Here, accordingly, the Ammi parted forever from the Lali, and the
separation proved the greatest turning point in the world’s affairs. The
Lali became lost to history, like the Ten Tribes, and have been since
sought as the “Missing Link.” Wandering for generations in the Cold and
Famine they finally became extinct, the last of a numerous race. Passing
out of the world, as well as out of history, they will be sought forever
in vain. Only under glacial beds, amid fossil bones, may their relics now
be traced.

As the Ammi were making preparations for their homeward march, Oko
suggested that, before departing, they gather up all they had; and he
even went among the dead to see if he could find anything valuable on the
field.

With Cocoanut-scooper and Abroo he then took charge of the baggage,
including their provisions.

“For,” said Cocoanut-scooper, “the Swamp is covered with snow, so that we
may not be able to forage along the way as we did when we came.”

The preparations for the return march were soon completed, being few and
simple, so that in a little while the Ammi were on their way back to the
Cocoanut Hill region.

The snow was deep, and the way difficult, so that, like the march of
Napoleon from Moscow, this return of the Ammi was a journey of suffering
amid ice and snow and privation.

Gladly as the Greeks, who, when led back from Persia by Xenophon, beheld
with tears the Euxine Sea, and cried out with joy, “The Sea!” “The Sea!”
so the warriors of this earlier Anabasis, when they came to the Lake
where they had left their fleet, expressed great joy at the sight of the
shores beyond, which recalled their homes.

They would have shed tears, but having only recently learned to laugh,
they had not yet learned to weep.

The rafts which they had left moored to the shore were fast in the ice,
except one which had fallen to pieces and was now seen strewn about as
stray logs.

But they had no need of rafts; for the water was frozen and they walked
across easily on the ice.

After some small adventures they reached at last their homes with joy,
and the great expedition to the Lali, and their battles with them, were
at an end.

But they found, on reaching home, that their country was much changed.
All was covered with snow where they had left a green earth and tropical
foliage. The swarms of animals which had come from the north, like the
Goths, had, like them, swept away every vestige of improvement, and
devoured the fruits of the neighborhood. The trees which they had left
laden with mangos, figs and nuts, were now bare, their branches breaking
with snow instead of fruit. The Swamp itself seemed deserted, the life
which had filled it being dead or departed.

Their families too, had been depleted. Of those left behind some had
been slain by the cold or famine, while others had wandered away. It was
a desolate home, therefore, to which the returning warriors came, like
Greece when it was regained by the soldiers after the Trojan War.

[Illustration: RETURN OF THE AMMI TO COCOANUT HILL.]

Pounder discovered that some one had taken possession of his wife in his
absence, or of the woman who most nearly corresponded to such personage,
and he immediately slew him, and took her back. The two illegitimate
lovers had in his absence driven out many of the other Ammi who had
remained at home, and taken possession of what was left in their huts.
All this Pounder now took charge of, along with the woman.

One of their number had been lost, and did not return for many years.
He wandered about the Swamp, visiting its many shores, and meeting,
like Ulysses, many strange kinds of apes and other beasts. Long did he
search for his home, and many times he came near the edge of the Swamp,
in sight of Cocoanut Hill; but a perverse mistake each time drove him
farther away. He wandered among thickets and vines, crossed streams and
hid in marshes. He lived on roots dug from under the snow, and on fish
caught under the ice. He suffered many pains and aches and bruises, still
seeking his home. Twice he was chased by the mastodon, and four times he
fought with catamounts. The stars seemed to wander from their places so
that he could not even recognize the heavens; and when he emerged at last
from the Swamp it was to look upon an unknown country. Like the Wandering
Jew he found no rest for his feet, but went on forever, never finding
what he sought. Climbing banks and trees, and walking over ice and rocks,
he yet saw nothing familiar, but always something new; and when at last
he came within sight of his dwelling it was found to be under a mountain
of ice; and as he started to go south, he turned, with his usual fate,
to the north, and the traditions of the Ammi say that he is wandering to
this day.

CHAPTER XLII.

[Illustration]

As the cold continued and strengthened, and about all the animals had
left the Cocoanut Hill region, the Ammi began to consider whether they
also should not migrate. They had resisted the change of climate thus far
by building mounds, adding to their clothing, and habitually using fire.
(For they had given up their superstition about this element, to whom it
long since ceased to be a God, and was now not even an animal.)

By these and similar devices they could live in the cold longer than
other animals, and they made many improvements in their condition, which
would have defied the weather had it been of an ordinary kind. But a
glacial period had set in, which was to last, not for a winter, but for
an age. The snow was falling that was to pile up in mountains, and to
march for centuries over the land as glaciers, and no life could resist
it; and hence, when they were satisfied that there was to be no thaw, or
early return of warmth, they asked themselves whether they should not
abandon their homes and their country.

“The cold has come to stay,” said Cocoanut-scooper, “and we cannot always
dig for a living. The hogs and tapirs which excel us in rooting, have
left, and we should not try to live where a hog can’t.”

“Our fingers and toes are frozen,” said Gimbo, “and if we don’t soon get
away we will have nothing to walk away with.”

“How do we know,” asked Koree, “that we will find it better elsewhere?”

“I notice,” replied Abroo, “that none of the birds or beasts that go are
ever seen to come back, and they all go one way.”

“Perhaps they are frozen, and can’t return through the snow,” remarked
Koree.

“The birds, which do not have to walk, do not come back any more than the
beasts,” retorted Abroo.

“I think,” said Gimbo, “that any place where one can’t walk on four feet
is no place to live,” and he raised himself up on his hind feet to warm
his hands by blowing them—a method that they had only recently learned.

At this moment a great roar was heard in the mountains, and a shaking
of the earth like that which followed the upheaval of the Alps. A rush
of snow descended from a high peak, crashing into the valley below, and
burying everything beneath it. It was the first avalanche seen by man,
and it laid the foundation of a mighty glacier which was to be followed
by others in its march across the country.

The Ammi were frightened at this new wonder, and thought that part of
the sky had fallen, and that the gods would come next. Gimbo died from
the fright, not so much because of what he saw and heard, as from the
expected descent of the gods. Thus passed away the last four-footed man.

After regaining their composure they quickly decided to flee from the
Cold, the Famine and the falling Heavens.

It was, accordingly, determined to go South; and they immediately began
preparations for the exodus.

As soon as they were ready, they therefore left their ancient Paradise of
Cocoanut Hill—the first Eden of the Human Race—driven by the cold, bleak
God of Snow; but they sought another Eden.

As they started South, Koree and Sosee led the way, not caring whither
they went, so they went together.

They directed their steps toward Egypt and Western Asia, whence their
ancestors had come.

They soon got beyond the snow, and out of their sufferings; for
the glacial region did not extend far south of Cocoanut Hill. They
accordingly had abundant fruits and mild climate for their journey, and
they proceeded with merriment, as well as regret, stopping often and
delaying long where the country through which they passed pleased them.

They were soon beyond the Alps, which they did not, like Napoleon and
Hannibal, have to scale; but many of the present peaks and ridges were
not yet thrown up in the air, so that they easily passed through the
defiles on level ground.

Nor were they stopped by the Mediterranean; for that sea did not then
exist in its present extent. The whole surface of Europe, indeed,
differed from its present contour. Spain was still connected with Africa
at Gibraltar, and Italy at Sicily; while the British Isles were still
joined to the continent. It was subsequent convulsions that first tore
the continents apart, and sent deluges over Europe. For the upheaval of
the Alps, already mentioned, was to be followed by others still greater,
which would upset the basins of the old world, and spill their contents
over nearly all Europe, destroying its life.

It was not difficult, therefore, for these primitive pilgrims to make
their way to the tropics; and, like the Phocaeans, they went resolved
never to return; and not for many centuries was Man again seen in Europe
or the North.

The region that was covered with snow remained a waste for ages; and it
was, according to a prophecy of the Ammi, to continue unpeopled, until
one of the descendents of Koree and Sosee should return, and, under the
name of Adam, (Ammi or Man) recapture Cocoanut Hill, and enter again the
North as a Paradise Regained.

But some said that the man who should thus re-people the North would be
the lost one mentioned in the preceding chapter, who would wander till
the appointed time in Alligator Swamp; and they maintained also that he
would then be found to be no other than the faithful Aloo, who had fallen
back with Osa to die; that on account of their faithfulness these two
lovers would not be destroyed by cold, or hunger, or fatigue, or time;
but that, overcoming all hardships, they would wander on until the Sun
should come again; when they would find rest at last amid the retreating
snows, and there start a new race, after all others had passed out of
history.

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