The Secret People by John Beynon & John Wyndham

Author:John Beynon & John Wyndham [Beynon, John & Wyndham, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780340158340
Google: 78kPSgAACAAJ
Amazon: 0340158344
Publisher: Coronet Books
Published: 1978-01-01T13:00:00+00:00

'Nor were the men all of one type. They, like the other creatures, had adapted to different climates. Until they had evolved clothes, discovered fire and other means of protection from extreme heat and cold, they were as subject to natural conditions as the animals themselves. Each race must have lived in its own zone with very little trespassing either to north or south.

'But in the course of time, the zones shifted. The earth's axis tilted; the sub-tropical flora began to perish. Each summer there was a little more ice round the poles, and each winter saw the Arctic Circle pushed a little farther south. It was slow—a matter of a few inches at a time— but it was relentless. The ice crept down, driving everything before it. The winters grew harder and longer; the animals went south, and the hunters followed. North Europe became temperate, then cold. Still the ice pursued, and the men from the north were driven down upon the inhabitants of the torrid lands in the south.

'The races did not mix. The original inhabitants were a smaller, weaker species than the invaders, and unable to resist the successive waves of humanity rolling in from the north; they were, in fact, the ancestors of the pygmies. The northerners were a hardier, more adaptable race for whom life had been less easy than it was for the others; there could be no question which was the better fitted to survive. There was a natural limit to the number which the land could support, and it became clear that if anyone was going to perish through starvation, it would not be the newcomers. The pygmies took their chance of survival and began to migrate southward in their turn. They took to the great forests, and hid themselves in jungle depths so inhospitable and unattractive that no race has ever yet troubled to dislodge them.

'It was one of the great changes of the world. The ice caps, creeping closer from north and south, compressed all life into the equatorial belt. Not only were the pygmies driven south, but other, similar races in other parts of the world were forced from the open, fertile country to seek refuges where they might survive.

About that time the Andamanese must have reached their islands, the Sakai have found Sumatra, the Semangs, Borneo, and the New Guinea Pygmies have hidden themselves in their impenetrable country. And there they have all remained, for though the ice receded, the invaders did not. Their progeny spread to cover the north once again, but there was no racial withdrawal from the southern lands.

That is what I meant when I said that these were real pygmies.'

'That this was once all pygmy country, and these have survived?'

'Exactly. They were driven into inhospitable regions; they took to living in caves. They found that this district was riddled with them, and they went deeper.

Though, mind you, none of this happened suddenly; it was an instinctive move for self-preservation going on for generation after generation as conditions grew worse; there can have been little of conscious flight about it.

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