Farther to the north, (as they heard), the progress of the cold was well under way, but now its influence first reached the Ammi.
“What is that?” asked several at once, directing their attention to the sky.
A snow storm had come. It was the first snow that had fallen in those regions, and was a stranger to both Men and Apes.
“It’s the clouds coming down from the sky,” said one; “they have broken in pieces and are falling.”
“It is blossoms from the trees in heaven,” said Koree, who had grown sentimental from long thinking about Sosee; “Shoozoo is shaking them down as he runs through the forests after owls.”
“I think it is dragon flies,” said Gimbo, who observed the form of the flakes. “There is here the short-beam and the long-beam. Surely Shoozoo is coming to the earth, and we ought to be very devout.”
Among the Lali the snow produced still greater consternation. Some said it was the white form of Simlee, the wife of Shoozoo, who was coming to the Apes; and all agreed that it came on account of the war between the Apes and the Men. In as much as a snow-flake, when examined, was seen to turn to water, a priest of the Lali remarked that it was going back to Shoozoo, the great reservoir, or Swamp, into which all things at last return.
Suddenly there was a tremendous rush of arctic animals over both camps, and all the country, as far as the eye could reach, was alive with them. They came from the north where the heavy snows had started a migration southward. Aurochs, reindeer, Irish elk and other kinds now extinct, were in the herds. They rushed pell-mell before the snows, tramping down everything in their way, and falling over one another, like a stampede of buffaloes or wild horses. Many were trampled to death or else left maimed in their trail. Mingled among them were lions, leopards and other savage beasts, which followed them for food, or were also migrating to a warmer climate; so that there was a slaughter of many kinds in the herds. It seemed to the Ammi as if all the beasts had gone to war, as well as the Men and Apes, and were marching in great armies and fighting constant battles.
“The Sky and the North are both pouring out their forces upon us,” said Abroo.
“Let us catch them, and keep them for food,” said Oko, who had been trying to tame a calf of the Urus which he had captured, thus beginning the work of domestication, which the descendants of the Ammi have continued till now.