316 THE HRST POTTER 



THE FIRST POTTER 



Collective humanity owes a great debt of gratitude to the 

 first potter. Before his days the art of boihng, though in 

 one sense very simple and primitive indeed, was in another 

 sense very complex, cumbersome, and lengthy. The un- 

 sophisticated savage, having duly speared and killed his 

 antelope, proceeded to light a roaring fire, with flint or 

 drill, by the side of some convenient lake or river in his 

 tropical jungle. Then he dug a big hole in the soft mud 

 close to the water's edge, and let the water (rather muddy) 

 percolate into it, or sometimes even he plastered over its 

 bottom with puddled clay. After that, he heated some 

 smooth round stones red hot in the fire close by, and 

 drawing them out gingerly between two pieces of stick, 

 dropped them one by one, spluttering and fizzing, into his 

 improvised basin or kettle. This, of course, made the 

 ■water in the hole boil ; and the unsophisticated savage 

 thereupon thrust into it his joint of antelope, repeating the 

 process over and over again until the sodden meat was 

 completely seethed to taste on the outside. If one applica- 

 tion was not sufficient, he gnawed off t}'.e cooked meat from 

 the surface with his stout teeth, innocent as yet of the 

 dentist's art, and plunged the underdone core back again, 

 till it exactly suited his not over-delicate or dainty fancy. 



To be sure, the primitive savage, unversed as he was in 

 pastes and glazes, in moulds and ornaments, did not pass 



