Now we begin to see something of these ancient forefathers of ours, and to understand what kind of people they were. Presently we shall have to look into their religion, out of which our Fairy Stories were really made; but first, there are one or two other things to be said about them. One of these shows that they were far in advance of savage races, for they could count as high as one hundred, while savages can seldom get further than the number of their fingers; and they had also advanced so far as to divide the year into twelve months, which they took from the changes of the moon. Then their family relations were very close and tender. "Names were given to the members of families related by marriage as well as by blood. A welcome greeted the birth of children, as of those who brought joy to the home; and the love that should be felt between brother and sister was shown in the names given to them: _bhratar_ (or brother) being he who sustains or helps; _svasar_ (or sister) she who pleases or consoles. The daughter of each household was called _duhitar,_ from _duh_, a root which in Sanskrit means to milk, by which we know that the girls in those days were the milking-maids. Father comes from a root, _pa_, which means to protect or support; mother, _matar_, has the meaning of maker."[1] Now we may sum up what we know of this ancient people and their ways; and we find in them much that is to be found in their descendants--the love of parents and children, the closeness of family ties, the protection of life and property, the maintenance of law and order, and, as we shall see presently, a great reverence for _God_. Also, they were well versed in the arts of life--they built houses, formed villages or towns, made roads, cultivated the soil, raised great herds of cattle and other animals; they made boats and land-carriages, worked in metals for use and ornament, carried on trade with each other, knew how to count, and were able to divide their time so as to reckon by months and days as well as by seasons. Besides all this, they had something more and of still higher value, for the fragments of their ancient poems or hymns preserved in the Hindu and Persian sacred books show that they thought much of the spirit of man as well as of his bodily life; that they looked upon sin as an evil to be punished or forgiven by the Gods, that they believed in a life after the death of the body, and that they had a strong feeling for natural beauty and a love of searching into the wonders of the earth and of the heavens.