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EARS upon years ago, when all the world was young, when Atlantis was among the chief islands of it, and the Aryans had not yet descended from their cradle on the roof of the world, there wandered up past the sources of the sleepy Nile the patriarch Kintu and his wife. For many months he travelled, he and his old wife, their one she-goat, and one cow, and carrying with them one banana and one sweet potato. And they were alone in their journey.

From out the leagues of papyrus fen the ibis and the flamingo screamed, and through the matete-canes the startled crocodile plunged under the lily-covered waves. Overhead circled and piped vast flocks of strange waterfowl, puzzled by the sight of human beings, and from the path before them the sulky lion hardly turned away. The hyenas in the rattan brakes snarled to see them pass, and wailing through the forests, that covered the face of the land, came the cry of the lonely lemur. A dreary, desolate country, rich in flowers and fruit, and surpassingly beautiful, but desolate of man.

The elephant was the noblest in the land, and on the water there was none to stand before the river-horse.