ve seen
yourself, and can judge what a noble animal he must have been. Enormous
bears came too, and hyaenas, and a tiger or lion (I cannot say which), as
large as the largest Bengal tiger now to be seen in India.

And in those days--we cannot, of course, exactly say when--there
came--first I suppose into the south and east of France, and then
gradually onward into England and Scotland and Ireland--creatures without
any hair to keep them warm, or scales to defend them, without horns or
tusks to fight with, or teeth to worry and bite; the weakest you would
have thought of the beasts, and yet stronger than all the animals,
because they were Men, with reasonable souls. Whence they came we cannot
tell, nor why; perhaps from mere hunting after food, and love of
wandering and being independent and alone. Perhaps they came into that
icy land for fear of stronger and cleverer people than themselves; for we
have no proof, my child, none at all, that they were the first men that
trod this earth. But be that as it may, they came; and so cunning were
these savage men, and so brave likewise, though they had no iron among
them, only flint and sharpened bones, yet they contrived to kill and eat
the mammoths, and the giant oxen, and the wild horses, and the reindeer,
and to hold their own against the hyaenas, and tigers, and bears, simply
because they had wits, and the dumb animals had none. And that is the
strangest part to me of all my fairy tale. For what a man's wits are,
and why he has them, and therefore is able to invent and to improve,
while even the cleverest ape has none, and therefore can invent and
improve nothing, and therefore cannot better himself, but must remain
from father to son, and father to son again, a stupid, pitiful,
ridiculous ape, while men can go on civilising themselves, and growing
richer and more comfortable, wiser and happier, year by year--how that
comes to pass, I say, is to me a wonder and a prodigy and a miracle,
stranger than all the most fantastic marvels you ever read in fairy
tales.

You may find the flint weapons which these old savages used buried in
many a gravel-pit up and down France and the south of England; but you
will find none here, for the gravel here was made (I am told) at the
beginning of the ice-time, before the north of England sunk into the sea,
and therefore long, long before men came into this land. But most of
their remains are found in caves which water has eaten out o