Page:Phosphor (1888).djvu/73

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PHOSPHOR.
73

CHAPTER IX.

"This tradition was told me by my mother.

"She heard it from her mother. My great grandmother had told it to her, and thus it has been handed down from when it occurred to the present time. When that was I am unable to tell you, but it must have been many years ago. Before then we were even more ugly than now. Our legs were of a different shape, we could not stand upright, tails grew behind us, our arms were much longer, ending in hands with fingers nearly all the same length. We were much smaller, and completely covered with long hair.

"We did not live here, but in a place that became light and then dark. There were many thousands of us. An awful time came.

"The earth began to shake.

"Hot stuff like that in the hole they were going to throw you in, poured down the side of the mountain, filling many of the smaller caves and killing a large number of those who had taken shelter in them.

"A few took refuge in these caves and escaped.

"The earth shook for some time.