, and no," she said, smiling. "It was only those who could use their
feet as well as their hands who could get a good living: or, indeed, get
married; so that they got the best of everything, and starved out all
the rest; and those who are left keep up a regular breed of
toe-thumb-men, as a breed of short-horns, or skye-terriers, or fancy
pigeons is kept up."

"But there is a hairy one among them," said Ellie.

"Ah!" said the fairy, "that will be a great man in his time, and chief
of all the tribe."

And, when she turned over the next five hundred years, it was true.

For this hairy chief had had hairy children, and they hairier children
still; and every one wished to marry hairy husbands, and have hairy
children too; for the climate was growing so damp that none but the
hairy ones could live: all the rest coughed and sneezed, and had sore
throats, and went into consumptions, before they could grow up to be men
and women.

Then the fairy turned over the next five hundred years. And they were
fewer still.

"Why, there is one on the ground picking up roots," said Ellie, "and he
cannot walk upright."

No more he could; for in the same way that the shape of their feet had
altered, the shape of their backs had altered also.

"Why," cried Tom, "I declare they are all apes."

"Something fearfully like it, poor foolish creatures," said the fairy.
"They are grown so stupid now, that they can hardly think: for none of
them have used their wits for many hundred years. They have almost
forgotten, too, how to talk. For each stupid child forgot some of the
words it heard from its stupid parents, and had not wits enough to make
fresh words for itself. Beside, they are grown so fierce and suspicious
and brutal that they keep out of each other's way, and mope and sulk in
the dark forests, never hearing each other's voice, till they have
forgotten almost what speech is like. I am afraid they will all be apes
very soon, and all by doing only what they liked."

And in the next five hundred years they were all dead and gone, by bad
food and wild beasts and hunters; all except one tremendous old fellow
with jaws like a jack, who stood full seven feet high; and M. Du Chaillu
came up to him, and shot him, as he stood roaring and thumping his
breast. And he remembered that his ancestors had once been men, and
tried to say, "Am I not a man and a brother?" but had forgotten how to
use his tongue; and then he had tried to call for a do