ralyzed by such acts of
ingratitude, were weakened by what should have made us strong. We
passively beheld a loathsome reptile, that might at first have been
crushed in an hour, thrive to become a monster to devour us.

"At length, but, alas! too late, we awoke to the danger of our
situation. We drove them from our cities to the mountains, but ere we
could take active measures to prevent a recurrence of these outrages,
the other race we had fostered started up like a swarm of locusts, and
declaring themselves our equals, demanded to be recognized as such. So
preposterous was this demand, that we were at first disposed to treat
it only as the suggestion of a disordered intellect, but, of course,
could never comply with so degrading a request, for nothing we could do
could invest them with strength, intellect, or form like ours. Soon
after our refusal they too grew audacious, and forming a league with
the savages, set up a king whom they said should make laws and govern
the land. Then commenced a terrible war of extermination. This whole
continent was drenched with blood. _We_ fought to save _our_ homes and
our country, _they_ to gain the supremacy. It was not a battle of a
year or of half a century. As many years as I have seen, the torrent
was never stayed, and when an advantage was gained, on either side,
life was never spared. By slow degrees, they possessed themselves of
fortress after fortress, and city after city: _we_, the while, growing
weaker, they stronger, until we were compelled to take refuge in the
cities of our king. These cities were built and walled with granite,
and we supposed them to be impregnable; and laying as they did in the
_centre_ of the continent, and in proximity to one another, we hoped
yet to withstand them. But, alas! we had another foe to encounter.
Gaunt hunger and famine came with their ghastly forms and bony arms,
blighting the strong and the brave. But it could not make traitors or
cowards of us, and dying we hurled defiance at our foes. The walls of
our cities unmanned, were scaled--the gates thrown open; and our
streets filled with the murderers whom we had reared to exterminate us.
A few were found alive, and these few were saved by the victors that
the arts and sciences might not die. From these I am descended; but
though we refused to transmit this knowledge to them, they treated us
with great care, hoping that after a lapse of time we would amalgamate
with them. But we were made