A BIRD OF PASSAGE 



In California I saw an epitome of the merciless 

 way inorganic Nature deals with life. An old, dried, 

 and hardened asphalt lake near Los Angeles tells a 

 horrible tale of animal suffering and failure. It had 

 been a pit of horrors for long ages; it was Nature 

 concentrated — her wild welter of struggling and 

 devouring forms through the geologic ages made vis- 

 ible and tangible in a small patch of mingled pitch 

 and animal bones. There was nearly as much bone 

 as pitch. The fate of the unlucky flies that alight 

 upon tangle-foot fly-paper in our houses had been 

 the fate of the victims that had perished here. How 

 many wild creatures had turned appealing eyes to 

 the great unheeding void as they felt themselves 

 helpless and sinking in this all-engulfing pitch ! In 

 like manner how many human beings in storms and 

 disasters at sea and in flood and fire upon land have 

 turned the same appealing look to the unpitying 

 heavens ! There is no power in the world of physical 

 forces, or apart from our own kind, that heeds us or 

 turns aside for us, or bestows one pitying glance 

 upon us. Life has run, and still runs, the gantlet of 

 a long line of hostile forces, and escapes by dint of 

 fleetness of foot, or agility in dodging, or else by 

 toughness of fibre. 



Yet here we are; here is love and charity and 

 mercy and intelligence; the fair face of childhood, 

 the beautiful face of youth, the clear, strong face of 

 manhood and womanhood, and the calm, benign 



123 



