other races, and just as it was, presumably, at the beginning of the
world.

Having briefly traced the origin of Pantomime, and the source of
dancing, let us, in order to further amplify my subject, look at also
for a moment the origin of music, in the time of prehistoric man.

From Nature also do we derive this art, as "The sighing of the wind
passing over a bed of reeds is Nature's first suggestion of breath," and
of music. The clapping of hands and the stamping of feet is man's first
element in the making of music, which developed itself into the
formation of drums, bells, and cymbals, and the evolution of the same
primary principle.

It has been argued, and also ridiculously pretended, that in the
Antediluvian period mankind only lived in caves with the hairy mammoth,
the cave bear, the rhinoceros, and the hyaena, in a state of barbarous
savagery; and that only since the Deluge have the Arts been known and
cities built on this terrestrial sphere of ours. Could anything be more
fallacious?

We know, from the Bible, that the first man was created about six
thousand years ago, and some sixteen hundred and fifty-six years
afterwards the inhabitants of the world, with the exception of Noah and
his family, consisting of eight souls all told, were destroyed by the
flood. Noah and his family, we can take it, were of the same race of
mankind then on the earth, of the same descent and of the same flesh and
blood (as we all are) of our common father and mother, Adam and Eve; yet
we are not told that Noah (he was six hundred years old when he went
into the Ark) and his family were savages. In the 4th chapter, 21st