One day my grandfather, to whom I have alluded in my salutation, went up
to the North Pole. There he learned the cause of the change of seasons,
and finding it exceedingly cold conceived a joke he would play upon his
tribe. Thereupon he filled his horn full of the northern air and carried
it back.
Now it happened the day on which he returned was bath day and the whole
tribe was bathing in the lake. When he was within such distance he could
put the mouth of the horn to the edge of the lake he did so and blew
softly upon it.
The lake was immediately covered by a coat of ice upon which the people
at once stood, for the water was becoming so cold they could not stay in
it. He continued to blow on the horn and the people got so cold they
began to shrivel up, and had he not at last blown all the cold out of
this horn they would have shrunken into mere nothing. As it was they
were so small he had to look several times to discover where they were,
and he put the whole tribe in the pocket of his overcoat and carried
them to his tent. He tried hard to warm them up and bring them back to
their normal size, but it was impossible.
Thus it came about that this tribe became the forefathers of what are
now called Pigmies and Dwarfs, and their mixture with the giants
produced the present stature of the people of the earth.
* * * * *
By way of interlude then.
There was a time when the complexion of the people of the earth was red
and they had bright red hair and beards; and it would have been so unto
this day had not the following occurred:
There was a very warm spring in which certain of the family or tribe
loved to sport. How it came about, except that some subterranean stream
had broken out immediately beneath the lake, it was never known; but so
it was while they were all in bathing and another tribe was looking on,
the water became fiercely black and very hot. They hastened to the
shore, and when they got up out of the water they were all black as
midnight and the tribe on the shore became so transfixed with fear their
countenances, hair, and beard changed to an absolute white. All the
efforts of the medical force failed to change the first tribe from black
or the second tribe from white back to their usual color.
The white tribe held a great caucus and they came in great numbers to
debate the occurrence, and thus they came to be called Caucusions or
Caucasians.
And so it was there came to be variations not alone in the complexion of
the peoples of the earth, but in the hue of their hair and beard.
* * * * *
By way of postlude then.
So it was the mixture of tribes brought about a kind or class of people
with eyes so tender and delicate the light of the sun worked them great
inconvenience. They were people with pinkish-hued eyes and skin, with
hair exceedingly light in color.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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