The First Days of Man, as Narrated Quite Simply for Young ReadersKummer, Frederic Arnold
General
The First Days of Man, as Narrated Quite Simply for Young Readers
Kummer, Frederic Arnold
Cave dwellers -- Juvenile literature; Prehistoric peoples -- Juvenile literature
There were many Ape-Men in the valley now, descendants of Adh and
his wife, and they had hollowed other caves in the soft rock and
earth of the hillsides at the upper end of the valley, digging with
sharp-pointed sticks and stones. They lived on raw fish, and fruits,
roots and nuts, just as Adh and his family had done before them, and
the eggs of wild birds, and the young fledglings, which they found in
nests among the trees and rocks. They carried long wooden spears, and
clubs, and were quick and strong. And because there were plenty of fish
in the stream, and in the lake at the lower end of the valley, even
during the cold rainy season, they had never thought of storing up food
for the Winter. Of such things as clothes, or fire, they knew nothing
at all.
There were high, rough hills, covered with thick forests, all about
the valley, except at its lower end, where the great lake spread out,
pouring its waters into the country below through a narrow gorge
between two hills. Because the valley was protected in this way, few
enemies came into it to attack the cave men. When one appeared, as
sometimes happened, the hunters, with their clubs and spears, would
attack it in a body, and while it often happened that some of them were
killed, they usually were able to overcome the intruder in the end, or
drive him from the valley. The most terrible of these enemies was the
sabre-toothed tiger, larger than any tiger you have seen in the circus,
with two long sharp teeth or fangs, curving down like sabres from his
upper jaw. When this terrible beast appeared, the cave men usually hid
in their caves, afraid.
Once, when Ra was about twenty years old, a huge beast like an
elephant, with long shaggy hair and great curving tusks came splashing
up along the marshy shores of the lake, and began to strip and eat the
tender leaves and fruit from the young bushes and trees.
Ra, who was spearing fish at the upper end of the lake, had never seen
such a creature before, and when he caught sight of it coming towards
him he was very much frightened.
He quickly gave the alarm, and soon twenty or more of the cave men ran
up, and surrounding the huge creature, began to attack it by throwing
stones at it, at the same time making a loud noise, hoping to scare it
away.
The great creature did not mind the stones, at first, for he scarcely
felt them, as they bounced from his thick, hairy sides, but soon one of
the stones struck him near the eye and hurt him, and he turned on the
cave men with a snort of pain, waving his long trunk about in the air.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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