In Europe man has long since grown out of his childhood, but in many parts of the world he is no more civilized than the men who saw the mammoth crashing through the forests of England and France, and heard the lion roar at night on the banks of the Thames, and watched the hippopotamus swimming across the river at Westminster. It is most likely, then, that Europe and parts of Asia and America were inhabited long before those places where men are even now in the stone age—such as the islands in the Pacific Ocean, New Guinea, Australia, &c. What a life the pre-historic men of Europe must have lived! Here they were surrounded by huge dangerous animals, and had no means of protecting themselves against them but with these rough stone weapons. Where London now stands with its miles of streets and busy life there was a mighty forest, and the mammoth and rhinoceros tramped through it by day, and the lion and hyena hunted the deer at night. When the pre-historic men came down to the banks of the Thames in the day-time to spear salmon, they saw the hippopotamus plunging about in the water among the rushes, sweeping the long grass into their wide mouths, and swimming from side to side with their young ones perched upon their necks. It must have been a grand sight, but a fearful one too, and it is no wonder that men thought the caves the only safe places to live in. Sometimes in India the elephants come into the villages at night and throw down wooden houses and kill people, and they are very much feared, so that we can suppose how much more terrible the mammoth might have been to the uncivilized cave-dwellers. If they shot at him with the flint-pointed arrows they could scarcely hurt him, and it is more likely that they got out of his way as quickly as possible whenever they met him, and took good care never to interfere with the lion and rhinoceros. THE LAKE-DWELLERS.