THE DISPERSION 209 



and some of these germinating would produce patches 

 of grain, or shrubs, or fruit trees around the hut. 

 Noticing these and protecting them, she would be 

 the first gardener and orchardist. The woman and her 

 children might add to the cultivated plants or domes- 

 ticated quadrupeds and birds ; and the man would 

 be induced, in the intervals of hunting and fishing, to 

 guard, protect, and fence them. 



When the boys grew up, to one of them might be 

 assigned the care of the sheep and goats, to the other 

 the culture of the little farm, while they might aid 

 their father in erecting a better and more artistic 

 habitation, the first attempt at architecture, and in 

 introducing artificial irrigation to render their field 

 more fertile. Is not this little romance of M. Elie 

 Reclus perfectly in harmony with the old familiar 

 story in Genesis, and also with the most recent 

 results of modern science ? 



