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Read Ebook: Not Fit for Children by Smith Evelyn E Francis Dick Illustrator
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Ebook has 64 lines and 7431 words, and 2 pages
XL.--THE WAR WITH FRANCE, AND ESTABLISHMENT OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 437
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF GERMAN HISTORY. 462
LIST OF MAPS.
PAGE
Germany under the Caesars 11
The Migrations of the Races, A. D. 500 64
Empire of Charlemagne, with the Partition of the Treaty of Verdun, A. D. 843 107
Germany under the Saxons and Frank Emperors, Twelfth Century 139
Germany under Napoleon, 1812 401
Metz and Vicinity 441
The German Empire, 1871 446
A HISTORY OF GERMANY.
THE ANCIENT GERMANS AND THEIR COUNTRY.
The Aryan Race and its Migrations. --Earliest Inhabitants of Europe. --Lake Dwellings. --Celtic and Germanic Migrations. --Europe in the Fourth Century B. C. --The Name "German." --Voyage of Pytheas. --Invasions of the Cimbrians and Teutons, B. C. 113. --Victories of Marius. --Boundary between the Gauls and the Germans. --Geographical Location of the various Germanic Tribes. --Their Mode of Life, Vices, Virtues, Laws, and Religion.
When and under what circumstances the Aryans left their home, can never be ascertained. Most scholars suppose that there were different migrations, and that each movement westward was accomplished slowly, centuries intervening between their departure from Central Asia and their permanent settlement in Europe. The earliest migration was probably that of the tribes who took possession of Greece and Italy; who first acquired, and for more than a thousand years maintained, their ascendency over all other branches of their common family; who, in fact, laid the basis for the civilization of the world.
Before this migration took place, Europe was inhabited by a race of primitive savages, who were not greatly superior to the wild beasts in the vast forests which then covered the continent. They were exterminated at so early a period that all traditions of their existence were lost. Within the last fifty years, however, various relics of this race have been brought to light. Fragments of skulls and skeletons, with knives and arrow-heads of flint, have been found, at a considerable depth, in the gravel-beds of Northern France, or in caves in Germany, together with the bones of animals now extinct, upon which they fed. In the lakes of Switzerland, they built dwellings upon piles, at a little distance from the shore, in order to be more secure against the attacks of wild beasts or hostile tribes. Many remains of these lake-dwellings, with flint implements and fragments of pottery, have recently been discovered. The skulls of the race indicate that they were savages of the lowest type, and different in character from any which now exist on the earth.
The second migration of the Aryan race is supposed to have been that of the Celtic tribes, who took a more northerly course, by way of the steppes of the Volga and the Don, and gradually obtained possession of all Central and Western Europe, including the British Isles. Their advance was only stopped by the ocean, and the tribe which first appears in history, the Gauls, was at that time beginning to move eastward again, in search of new fields of plunder. It is impossible to ascertain whether the German tribes immediately followed the Celts, and took possession of the territory which they vacated in pushing westward, or whether they formed a third migration, at a later date. We only know the order in which they were settled when our first historical knowledge of them begins.
In the fourth century before the Christian Era, all Europe west of the Rhine, and as far south as the Po, was Celtic; between the Rhine and the Vistula, including Denmark and southern Sweden, the tribes were Germanic; while the Slavonic branch seems to have already made its appearance in what is now Southern Russia. Each of these three branches of the Aryan race was divided into many smaller tribes, some of which, left behind in the march from Asia, or separated by internal wars, formed little communities, like islands, in the midst of territory belonging to other branches of the race. The boundaries, also, were never very distinctly drawn: the tribes were restless and nomadic, not yet attached to the soilork," I projected. "We can use all the copper we can get."
"You like metal, dear?" a female asked Hsoj. She unfastened a belt from around her waist. "Would you take this in exchange for some of your pretty things?"
"Say 'yes,'" I conceptualized. "That's steel. Old and worthless to her, but not to us."
"I know, I know," Hsoj ideated impatiently. "What makes you think you're the only one who knows anything?"
Never had we got such a big haul before, because everybody seemed to have all sorts of metal stuff on him that he valued less than coins.
"You're getting to be as stupid as a human," he thought in disgust.
"May we go inside?" the scientific passenger asked Sam.
"No, indeed," I said hastily. "It is our temple, sacred to the gods. No unbeliever may set foot in it."
"What are the basic tenets of your religion?" the scientist wanted to know.
"We do not talk about it," I said with dignity. "It is tabu. Bad form."
"And now," announced the guide, glancing at his watch, "we have just time for the war dance before we leave for Vesta."
"Against whom are they planning a war?" asked a small passenger, turning pale.
"It's a vestigial ritual," Sam explained quickly, "dating back to the days when there were other--er--when there was somebody to fight. Just an invocation to the gods ... general stuff like that ... nothing to be afraid of. Isn't it so, Qan?"
"Quite so," I replied, folding all my arms across my mother's cloak. "Come in peace, go in peace. Our motto."
The dance finished.
Everybody murmured assent. This contingency arose all too often--a result of our being just too lovable.
There was a mad scramble to reach the ship.
"Stand by the atmosphere machine, Hsoj," I instructed, "to poison a little air in case anybody wants to take a sample."
The scientist actually did, in a little bottle he seemed to have brought along for the purpose; but he got off the "asteroid" as rapidly as the rest of them, after that.
We watched the spaceship dwindle to a silver mote in the distance.
"Whew," Ppon thought, sinking to the surface. "That war dance sure takes a lot out of a fellow."
Then he conceptualized indignantly as he--as well as the rest of us--floated off the top level. "Somebody's cut the gravity!"
"Must be Grandfather," I mentalized. "I suppose he thinks we've been out long enough, so he's warning us, just as if we were a bunch of infants. I guess we'd better go inside, though. Let's not forget to turn off the atmosphere, fellows. It uses too much energy and the old ones won't let us play topside any more."
"You know everything, don't you, Qan?" Ppon sneered.
I ignored him. "Pretty good haul," I excogitated as I hefted the bags of metal. "Here, Ztul, catch!"
"You always make me carry everything!" he complained.
Grandfather caught us as we lowered ourselves from the airlock. I figured he must have been getting suspicious or otherwise he'd never have left his beloved engines.
"What's this you youngsters have?" he wanted to know, pouncing on our bags. "Metal, eh? I suppose you were going to make another fake meteorite out of it for me, were you?"
"I thought you wanted metal, Grandfather," I sulked. He could have been more appreciative.
"They have always brought you metal from time to time, Father," Mother projected, coming out as she overthought us. "So clever of them, I always thought."
"Yes, but I've been thinking that their encountering so many meteorites was a singularly curious coincidence. And they were curious meteorites, too. I suppose the young ones made them themselves."
"But out of what, Father? You know we don't have any spare metal on the ship. That's why you haven't been able to get the repairs finished before. Where else could they get the metal but from meteorites?"
"I don't know where they get their metal from, but certainly not from meteorites. These pieces here are artifacts. Look, the metal has been more or less refined and roughly formed into shapes with crude designs upon them. Tell me the truth, Qan, where did you get these?"
"Some people gave them to us," I replied sullenly.
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