"Look at those people by the seashore," Mother Nature went on. "See what splendid fishermen and sailors they are getting to be. And those strong hunters, who live in the mountains, and those farmers, beginning to raise grain and other things for food. Each tribe is learning different things, depending on its surroundings. Soon those tribes on the plains will have great herds of buffalo, and sheep and other animals, and later on they will teach them to work, and to carry them on their backs, and pull heavy loads. They will use their milk for food, too, and the wool and hair from their backs they will weave into warm, strong cloth from which to make clothing. After a while you will see these tribes wandering thousands of miles with their flocks and herds, going north in summer and south in winter to find fresh grass for their animals. The people will live in tents, and ride horses and camels, and they will be called nomads." "How are they going to catch these animals?" asked the Sun. "Some they will capture while very young. For others they will make traps by digging pits in the ground and covering them over with thin rushes and grass. The animals will walk on the rushes, thinking they are on solid ground, and so fall into the pits, and be caught." "These different peoples don't like each other," the Sun said. "They fight whenever they meet." "Yes," Mother Nature told him, with a sigh. "The tribes that are strongest and know the most must overcome those that are weak and lazy and ignorant. It may seem to you a cruel law, but it is a wise one, or God would never have made it. He wants His people to grow stronger and wiser and better all the time, and so you can see that He has to let the ones that are wiser and stronger go ahead, or the race would not make any progress at all. It would never do to have those splendid island people destroyed by those lazy savages in the jungles. For a long time Man will have to live by the law of force. It cannot be helped. But some day, as I have already told you, he will throw this law aside, and live by the law of love. It will take a long time, Sun, but it will come. Meanwhile, watch my little people carefully and you will see many more wonderful things." END OF VOLUME ONE TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: —Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected. End of Project Gutenberg's The First Days of Man, by Frederic Arnold Kummer