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.