es to meet its father Rhine, flowing through a wide and
level country that is under water in these latter days, and which we
know by the name of the North Sea. In that remote age the valley which
runs along the foot of the Downs did not exist, and the south of Surrey
was a range of hills, fir-clad on the middle slopes, and snow-capped for
the better part of the year. The cores of its summits still remain as
Leith Hill, and Pitch Hill, and Hindhead. On the lower slopes of the
range, below the grassy spaces where the wild horses grazed, were
forests of yew and sweet-chestnut and elm, and the thickets and dark
places hid the grizzly bear and the hyaena, and the grey apes clambered
through the branches. And still lower amidst the woodland and marsh and
open grass along the Wey did this little drama play itself out to the
end that I have to tell. Fifty thousand years ago it was, fifty thousand
years--if the reckoning of geologists is correct.

And in those days the spring-time was as joyful as it is now, and sent
the blood coursing in just the same fashion. The afternoon sky was blue
with piled white clouds sailing through it, and the southwest wind came
like a soft caress. The new-come swallows drove to and fro. The reaches
of the river were spangled with white ranunculus, the marshy places were
starred with lady's-smock and lit with marsh-mallow wherever the
regiments of the sedges lowered their swords, and the northward-moving
hippopotami, shiny black monsters, sporting clumsily, came floundering
and blundering through it all, rejoicing dimly and possessed with one
clear idea, to splash the river muddy.

Up the river and well in sight of the hippopotami, a number of little
buff-coloured animals dabbled in the water. There was no fear, no
rivalry, and no enmity between them and the hippopotami. As the great
bulks came crashing through the reeds and smashed the mirror of the
water into silvery splashes, these little creatures shouted and
gesticulated with glee. It was the surest sign of high spring. "Boloo!"
they cried. "Baayah. Boloo!" They were the children of the men folk, the
smoke of whose encampment rose from the knoll at the river's bend.
Wild-eyed youngsters they were, with matted hair and little broad-nosed
impish faces, covered (as some children are covered even nowadays) with
a delicate down of hair. They were narrow in the loins and long in the
arms. And their ears had no lobes, and had little pointed tips, a th