By one of those rare tricks of fortune, which are as often favourable as
hostile to humanity, an Arctic exploration ship had recently been
embedded in the pack-ice for a long drift across the Polar sea. She was
provisioned for four years, and when the catastrophe occurred she had
already been at sea for six months. She was a sailing vessel; the
expedition had been launched before it was practicable to make use of
the new source of power. The crew consisted of twenty-eight men and
seven women. Individuals of an earlier and more sexual race,
proportioned thus, in such close proximity and isolation, would almost
certainly have fallen foul of one another sooner or later. But to
Patagonians the arrangement was not intolerable. Besides managing the
whole domestic side of the expedition, the seven women were able to
provide moderate sexual delight for all, for in this people the female
sexuality was much less reduced than the male. There were, indeed,
occasional jealousies and feuds in the little community, but these were
subordinated to a strong _esprit de corps_. The whole company had, of
course, been very carefully chosen for comradeship, loyalty, and health,
as well as for technical skill. All claimed descent from the Divine Boy.
All were of the governing class. One quaint expression of the strongly
parental Patagonian temperament was that a pair of diminutive pet
monkeys was taken with the expedition.
The crew’s first intimation of the catastrophe was a furious hot wind
that melted the surface of the ice. The sky turned black. The Arctic
summer became a weird and sultry night, torn by fantastic thunderstorms.
Rain crashed on the ship’s deck in a continuous waterfall. Clouds of
pungent smoke and dust irritated the eyes and nose. Submarine
earthquakes buckled the pack-ice.
A year after the explosion, the ship was labouring in tempestuous and
berg-strewn water near the Pole. The bewildered little company now began
to feel its way south; but, as they proceeded, the air became more
fiercely hot and pungent, storms more savage. Another twelve months were
spent in beating about the Polar sea, ever and again retreating north
from the impossible southern weather. But at length conditions improved
slightly, and with great difficulty these few survivors of the human
race approached their original objective in Norway, to find that the
lowlands were a scorched and lifeless desert, while on the heights the
valley vegetation was already struggling to establish itself, in patches
of sickly green. Their base town had been flattened by a hurricane, and
the skeletons of its population still lay in the streets. They coasted
further south. Everywhere the same desolation. Hoping that the
disturbance might be merely local, they headed round the British Isles
and doubled back on France. But France turned out to be an appalling
chaos of volcanoes. With a change of wind, the sea around them was
infuriated with falling debris, often red hot. Miraculously they got
away and fled north again. After creeping along the Siberian coast they
were at last able to find a tolerable resting-place at the mouth of one
of the great rivers. The ship was brought to anchor, and the crew
rested. They were a diminished company, for six men and two women had
been lost on the voyage.
Conditions even here must recently have been far more severe, since much
of the vegetation had been scorched, and dead animals were frequent. But
evidently the first fury of the vast explosion was now abating.
By this time the voyagers were beginning to realize the truth. They
remembered the half jocular prophecies that the new power would sooner
or later wreck the planet, prophecies which had evidently been all too
well founded. There had been a world-wide disaster; and they themselves
had been saved only by their remoteness and the Arctic ice from a fate
that had probably overwhelmed all their fellow-men.
So desperate was the outlook for a handful of exhausted persons on a
devastated planet, that some urged suicide. All dallied with the idea,
save a woman, who had unexpectedly become pregnant. In her the strong
parental disposition of her race was now awakened, and she implored the
party to make a fight for the sake of her child. Reminded that the baby
would only be born into a life of hardship, she reiterated with more
persistence than reason, ‘My baby must live’.
The men shrugged their shoulders. But as their tired bodies recovered
after the recent struggle, they began to realize the solemnity of their
position. It was one of the biologists who expressed a thought which was
already present to all. There was at least a chance of survival, and if
ever men and women had a sacred duty, surely these had. For they were
now the sole trustees of the human spirit. At whatever cost of toil and
misery they must people the earth again.
This common purpose now began to exalt them, and brought them all into a
rare intimacy. ‘We are ordinary folk,’ said the biologist, ‘but somehow
we must become great.’ And they were, indeed, in a manner made great by
their unique position. In generous minds a common purpose and common
suffering breed a deep passion of comradeship, expressed perhaps not in
words but in acts of devotion. These, in their loneliness and their
sense of obligation, experienced not only comradeship, but a vivid
communion with one another as instruments of a sacred cause.
The party now began to build a settlement beside the river. Though the
whole area had, of course, been devastated, vegetation had soon revived,
from roots and seeds, buried or wind-borne. The countryside was now
green with those plants that had been able to adjust themselves to the
new climate. Animals had suffered far more seriously. Save for the
Arctic fox, a few small rodents, and one herd of reindeer, none were
left but the dwellers in the actual Arctic seas, the Polar bear, various
cetaceans, and seals. Of fish there were plenty. Birds in great numbers
had crowded out of the south, and had died off in thousands through lack
of food, but certain species were already adjusting themselves to the
new environment. Indeed, the whole remaining fauna and flora of the
planet was passing through a phase of rapid and very painful
readjustment. Many well-established species had wholly failed to get a
footing in the new world, while certain hitherto insignificant types
were able to forge ahead.
The party found it possible to grow maize and even rice from seed
brought from a ruined store in Norway. But the great heat, frequent
torrential rain, and lack of sunlight made agriculture laborious and
precarious. Moreover, the atmosphere had become seriously impure, and
the human organism had not yet succeeded in adapting itself.
Consequently the party were permanently tired and liable to disease.
The pregnant woman had died in child-birth, but her baby lived. It
became the party’s most sacred object, for it kindled in every mind the
strong parental disposition so characteristic of Patagonians.
Little by little the numbers of the settlement were reduced by sickness,
hurricanes, and volcanic gases. But in time they achieved a kind of
equilibrium with their environment, and even a certain strenuous amenity
of life. As their prosperity increased, however, their unity diminished.
Differences of temperament began to be dangerous. Among the men two
leaders had emerged, or rather one leader and a critic. The original
head of the expedition had proved quite incapable of dealing with the
new situation, and had at last committed suicide. The company had then
chosen the second navigating officer as their chief and had chosen him
unanimously. The other born leader of the party was a junior biologist,
a man of very different type. The relations of these two did much to
determine the future history of man, and are worthy of study in
themselves; but here we can only glance at them. In all times of stress
the navigator’s authority was absolute, for everything depended on his
initiative and heroic example. But in less arduous periods, murmurs
arose against him for exacting discipline when discipline seemed
unnecessary. Between him and the young biologist there grew up a strange
blend of hostility and affection; for the latter, though critical, loved
and admired the other, and declared that the survival of the party
depended on this one man’s practical genius.
Three years after their landing, the community, though reduced in
numbers and in vitality, was well established in a routine of hunting,
agriculture, and building. Three fairly healthy infants rejoiced and
exasperated their elders. With security, the navigator’s genius for
action found less scope, while the knowledge of the scientists became
more valuable. Plant and poultry-breeding were beyond the range of the
heroic leader, and in prospecting for minerals he was equally helpless.
Inevitably as time passed he and the other navigators grew restless and
irritable; and at last, when the leader decreed that the party should
take to the ship and explore for better land, a serious dispute
occurred. All the sea-farers applauded; but the scientists, partly
through clearer understanding of the calamity that had befallen the
planet, partly through repugnance at the hardship involved, refused to
go.
Violent emotions were aroused; but both sides restrained themselves
through well-tried mutual respect and loyalty to the community. Then
suddenly sexual passion set a light to the tinder. The woman who, by
general consent, had come to be queen of the settlement, and was
regarded as sacred to the leader, asserted her independence by sleeping
with one of the scientists. The leader surprised them, and in sudden
rage killed the young man. The little community at once fell into two
armed factions, and more blood was shed. Very soon, however, the folly
and sacrilege of this brawl became evident to these few survivors of a
civilized race, and after a parley a grave decision was made.
The company was to be divided. One party, consisting of five men and two
women, under the young biologist, was to remain in the settlement. The
leader himself, with the remaining nine men and two women, was to
navigate the ship toward Europe, in search of a better land. They
promised to send word, if possible, during the following year.
With this decision taken the two parties once more became amicable. All
worked to equip the pioneers. When at last it was the time of departure,
there was a solemn leave-taking. Every one was relieved at the cessation
of a painful incompatibility; but more poignant than relief was the
distressed affection of those who had so long been comrades in a sacred
enterprise.
It was a parting even more momentous than was supposed. For from this
act arose at length two distinct human species.
Those who stayed behind heard no more of the wanderers, and finally
concluded that they had come to grief. But in fact they were driven west
and south-west past Iceland, now a cluster of volcanoes, to Labrador. On
this voyage through fantastic storms and oceanic convulsions they lost
nearly half their number, and were at last unable to work the ship. When
finally they were wrecked on a rocky coast, only the carpenter’s mate,
two women, and the pair of monkeys succeeded in clambering ashore.
These found themselves in a climate far more sultry than Siberia; but
like Siberia, Labrador contained uplands of luxuriant vegetation. The
man and his two women had at first great difficulty in finding food, but
in time they adapted themselves to a diet of berries and roots. As the
years passed, however, the climate undermined their mentality, and their
descendants sank into abject savagery, finally degenerating into a type
that was human only in respect of its ancestry.
The little Siberian settlement was now hard-pressed but single-minded.
Calculation had convinced the scientists that the planet would not
return to its normal state for some millions of years; for though the
first and superficial fury of the disaster had already ceased, the
immense pent-up energy of the central explosions would take millions of
years to leak out through volcanic vents. The leader of the party, by
rare luck a man of genius, conceived their situation thus. For millions
of years the planet would be uninhabitable save for a fringe of Siberian
coast. The human race was doomed for ages to a very restricted and
uncongenial environment. All that could be hoped for was the persistence
of a mere remnant of civilized humanity, which should be able to lie
dormant until a more favourable epoch. With this end in view the party
must propagate itself, and make some possibility of cultured life for
its offspring. Above all it must record in some permanent form as much
as it could remember of Patagonian culture. ‘We are the germ,’ he said.
‘We must play for safety, mark time, preserve man’s inheritance. The
chances against us are almost overwhelming, but just possibly we shall
win through.’
And so in fact they did. Several times almost exterminated at the
outset, these few harassed individuals preserved their spark of
humanity. A close inspection of their lives would reveal an intense
personal drama; for, in spite of the sacred purpose which united them,
almost as muscles in one limb, they were individuals of different
temperaments. The children, moreover, caused jealousy between their
parentally hungry elders. There was ever a subdued, and sometimes an
open, rivalry to gain the affection of these young things, these few and
precious buds on the human stem. Also there was sharp disagreement about
their education. For though all the elders adored them simply for their
childishness, one at least, the visionary leader of the party, thought
of them chiefly as potential vessels of the human spirit, to be moulded
strictly for their great function. In this perpetual subdued antagonism
of aims and temperaments the little society lived from day to day, much
as a limb functions in the antagonism of its muscles.
The adults of the party devoted much of their leisure during the long
winters to the heroic labour of recording the outline of man’s whole
knowledge. This task was very dear to the leader, but the others often
grew weary of it. To each person a certain sphere of culture was
assigned; and after he or she had thought out a section and scribbled it
down on slate, it was submitted to the company for criticism, and
finally engraved deeply on tablets of hard stone. Many thousands of such
tablets were produced in the course of years, and were stored in a cave
which was carefully prepared for them. Thus was recorded something of
the history of the earth and of man, the outlines of physics, chemistry,
biology, psychology, and geometry. Each scribe set down also in some
detail a summary of his own special study, and added a personal
manifesto of his own views about existence. Much ingenuity was spent in
devising a vast pictorial dictionary and grammar, with which, it was
hoped, the remote future might interpret the whole library.
Years passed while this immense registration of human thought was still
in progress. The founders of the settlement grew feebler while the
eldest of the next generation were still adolescent. Of the two women,
one had died and the other was almost a cripple, both martyrs to the
task of motherhood. A youth, an infant boy, and four girls of various
ages—on these the future of man now depended. Unfortunately these
precious beings had suffered from their very preciousness. Their
education had been bungled. They had been both pampered and oppressed.
Nothing was thought too good for them, but they were overwhelmed with
cherishing and teaching. Thus they came to hold the elders at arm’s
length, and to weary of the ideals imposed on them. Brought into a
ruined world without their own consent, they refused to accept the
crushing obligation toward an improbable future. Hunting, and the daily
struggle of a pioneering age, afforded their spirits full exercise in
courage, mutual loyalty, and interest in one another’s personality. They
would live for the present only, and for the tangible reality, not for a
culture which they knew only by hearsay. In particular, they loathed the
hardship of engraving endless verbiage upon granitic slabs.
The crisis came when the eldest girl had crossed the threshold of
physical maturity. The leader told her that it was her duty to begin
bearing children at once, and ordered her to have intercourse with her
half-brother, his own son. Having herself assisted at the last birth,
which had destroyed her mother, she refused; and when pressed she
dropped her graving tool and fled. This was the first serious act of
rebellion. In a few years the older generation was deposed from
authority. A new way of life, more active, more dangerous, zestful, and
careless, resulted in a lowering of the community’s standard of comfort
and organization, but also in greater health and vitality. Experiments
in plant and stock-breeding were neglected, buildings went out of
repair; but great feats of hunting and exploration were undertaken.
Leisure was given over to games of hazard and calculation, to dancing,
singing, and romantic story-telling. Music and romance, indeed, were now
the main expression of the finer nature of these beings, and became the
vehicles of obscure religious experience. The intellectualism of the
elders was ridiculed. What could their poor sciences tell of reality, of
the many-faced, never-for-a-moment-the-same, superbly inconsequent, and
ever-living Real? Man’s intelligence was all right for hunting and
tillage in the world of common sense; but if he rode it further afield,
he would find himself in a desert, and his soul would starve. Let him
live as nature prompted. Let him keep the young god in his heart alive.
Let him give free play to the struggling, irrational, dark vitality that
sought to realize itself in him not as logic but as beauty.
The tablets were now engraved only by the aged.
But one day, after the infant boy had reached the early Patagonian
adolescence, his curiosity was roused by the tail-like hind limbs of a
seal. The old people timidly encouraged him. He made other biological
observations, and was led on to envisage the whole drama of life on the
planet, and to conceive loyalty to the cause which they had served.
Meanwhile, sexual and parental nature had triumphed where schooling had
failed. The young things inevitably fell in love with each other, and in
time several infants appeared.
Thus, generation by generation, the little settlement maintained itself
with varying success, varying zestfulness, and varying loyalty toward
the future. With changing conditions the population fluctuated, sinking
as low as two men and one woman, but increasing gradually up to a few
thousand, the limit set by the food capacity of their strip of coast. In
the long run, though circumstances did not prevent material survival,
they made for mental decline. For the Siberian coast remained a tropical
land, bounded on the south by a forest of volcanoes; and consequently in
the long run the generations declined in mental vigour and subtlety.
This result was perhaps due in part to too intensive inbreeding; but
this factor had also one good effect. Though mental vigour waned,
certain desirable characteristics were consolidated. The founders of the
group represented the best remaining stock of the first human species.
They had been chosen for their hardihood and courage, their native
loyalty, their strong cognitive interest. Consequently, in spite of
phases of depression, the race not only survived but retained its
curiosity and its group feeling. Even while the ability of men
decreased, their will to understand, and their sense of racial unity,
remained. Though their conception of man and the universe gradually sank
into crude myth, they preserved a strong unreasoning loyalty towards the
future, and toward the now sacred stone library which was rapidly
becoming unintelligible to them. For thousands and even millions of
years, after the species had materially changed its nature, there
remained a vague admiration for mental prowess, a confused tradition of
a noble past, and pathetic loyalty toward a still nobler future. Above
all, internecine strife was so rare that it served only to strengthen
the clear will to preserve the unity and harmony of the race.