The great-great-grandfather of the human race was a very ugly and unattractive

mammal. He was quite small, much smaller than the people of today. The heat of

the sun and the biting wind of the cold winter had coloured his skin a dark

brown. His head and most of his body, his arms and legs too, were covered with

long, coarse hair. He had very thin but strong fingers which made his hands look

like those of a monkey. His forehead was low and his jaw was like the jaw of a

wild animal which uses its teeth both as fork and knife. He wore no clothes. He

had seen no fire except the flames of the rumbling volcanoes which filled the

earth with their smoke and their lava.

 

He lived in the damp blackness of vast forests, as the pygmies of Africa do to

this very day. When he felt the pangs of hunger he ate raw leaves and the roots

of plants or he took the eggs away from an angry bird and fed them to his own

young. Once in a while, after a long and patient chase, he would catch a sparrow

or a small wild dog or perhaps a rabbit.

 

These he would eat raw for he had never discovered that food tasted better when

it was cooked.

 

During the hours of day, this primitive human being prowled about looking for

things to eat.

 

When night descended upon the earth, he hid his wife and his children in a

hollow tree or behind some heavy boulders, for he was surrounded on all sides by

ferocious animals and when it was dark these animals began to prowl about,