THE END OF THE STONE AGE
DURING all these long centuries, many, many thousands of years, the
people from the valley where Adh and his wife first lived had been
spreading far out over the surface of the earth. Many boats and canoes,
carried by storms from the country of the sea people, were driven to
other countries, and all around the shores of the sea new tribes were
springing up. Century after century, as these tribes became larger,
and game grew scarce, new bands of adventurers wandered off into the
wilderness inland, and from the tribes they formed still other bands
wandered away. Some crossed great lakes and seas in boats, others
drifted down mighty rivers for hundreds, and even thousands, of miles,
on rafts. Mountain ranges were crossed to find new hunting grounds,
and new tribes were formed, which in their turn sent out other bands
of adventurers. During all this time the face of the earth was
changing. Great glaciers from the frozen north crept southward century
after century, grinding the surface of the rocks like giant ploughs.
Earthquakes and floods caused new continents to rise where before there
had been only seas, or made seas, in places where there had been dry
land. Mother Nature's new race of men had to fight the heat and the
cold, the storms and the sea, as well as the fierce animals which were
always ready to attack them, but in spite of all these things, they
spread and grew, year after year, until the earth began to be covered
with them.
They did wonderful things with their tools of stone. Remains of their
work are found in many places, tens of thousands of years old. On the
Island of Malta, in the Mediterranean Sea, there has been found an
underground temple of great size, with many arched and vaulted rooms,
beautifully carved, all of which were cut out of the solid rock with
axes and chisels of flint. In other places wonderful temples, tombs and
buildings of various sorts have been discovered, built of great cut
stones, and we wonder how such huge rocks could ever have been squared
and polished so beautifully with nothing but tools of stone.
[Illustration: STONEHENGE
The ancient ruins in Wiltshire, England. Below, a diagram showing their
original construction.]
Mother Nature had been away for quite a long time now, for she did not
have to bother so much about her children as she had at first. In every
direction she saw them following her great laws, conquering the winds,
the sea, the rivers, the mountains, the plains, using the woods of the
forest, the fruits and grains of the fields, the metals, the clay and
the rocks to suit their needs. North and South and East and West they
spread out, increasing year after year in accordance with God's great
laws.
When Mother Nature came back she looked at the Sun and smiled.
"They have made a good beginning," she said.
"Is that only a beginning?" asked the Sun.
"Yes. So far they have hardly done anything at all. But they are on
the right track. With every thousand years that go by they will learn
a little more, and some day, far in the future, they will begin to
be really civilised. That time will come when they have conquered
everything else in the world, and begin to conquer themselves."
"Why is it," asked the Sun, "that some of them, like the ones on the
island, are going ahead so fast, while others are still just savages?"
"It is because of the climate, and the kind of country they live in.
Look at those savages down there in the hot jungle. All they have to
do is stretch out their hands and pick some nice juicy fruit. There
is always plenty for them to eat, and it is so warm all the time they
don't need any clothes, or houses to live in, but can sleep in the
trees, or in little bamboo huts. They will never learn to grow things,
or to hunt animals to eat. Life is so easy for them that they will keep
right on being savages for thousands of years."
"They are getting brown and black," said the Sun. "Why is that?"
"It is because they do not wear any clothes, and the hot rays you are
shining down on them are turning their skins darker. Just look at those
people up there in the north, where your rays are not so hot. They are
getting lighter and lighter all the time, their hair is getting yellow
and their eyes blue. They are stronger and quicker, too, and they know
much more. In their cold country there is no food ready to be eaten all
the year round. They have to fight very hard for a living, and this has
made them strong and brave and cunning."
"It is very wonderful," said the Sun.
"Look at those people by the seashore," Mother Nature went on. "See
what splendid fishermen and sailors they are getting to be. And those
strong hunters, who live in the mountains, and those farmers, beginning
to raise grain and other things for food. Each tribe is learning
different things, depending on its surroundings. Soon those tribes
on the plains will have great herds of buffalo, and sheep and other
animals, and later on they will teach them to work, and to carry them
on their backs, and pull heavy loads. They will use their milk for
food, too, and the wool and hair from their backs they will weave into
warm, strong cloth from which to make clothing. After a while you will
see these tribes wandering thousands of miles with their flocks and
herds, going north in summer and south in winter to find fresh grass
for their animals. The people will live in tents, and ride horses and
camels, and they will be called nomads."
"How are they going to catch these animals?" asked the Sun.
"Some they will capture while very young. For others they will make
traps by digging pits in the ground and covering them over with thin
rushes and grass. The animals will walk on the rushes, thinking they
are on solid ground, and so fall into the pits, and be caught."
"These different peoples don't like each other," the Sun said. "They
fight whenever they meet."
"Yes," Mother Nature told him, with a sigh. "The tribes that are
strongest and know the most must overcome those that are weak and lazy
and ignorant. It may seem to you a cruel law, but it is a wise one, or
God would never have made it. He wants His people to grow stronger and
wiser and better all the time, and so you can see that He has to let
the ones that are wiser and stronger go ahead, or the race would not
make any progress at all. It would never do to have those splendid
island people destroyed by those lazy savages in the jungles. For a
long time Man will have to live by the law of force. It cannot be
helped. But some day, as I have already told you, he will throw this
law aside, and live by the law of love. It will take a long time, Sun,
but it will come. Meanwhile, watch my little people carefully and you
will see many more wonderful things."
END OF VOLUME ONE
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.
End of Project Gutenberg's The First Days of Man, by Frederic Arnold Kummer