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.