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Noah
began to collect animals. There
was to be one couple of each
and every sort of creature
that walked or crawled, or
swam or flew, in the world
of animated nature. We have
to guess at how long it took
to collect the creatures and
how much it cost, for there
is no record of these details.
When Symmachus made preparation
to introduce his young son
to grown-up life in imperial
Rome, he sent men to Asia,
Africa and everywhere to collect
wild animals for the arena-fights.
It took the men three years
to accumulate the animals and
fetch them to Rome. Merely
quadrupeds and alligators,
you understand -- no birds,
no snakes, no frogs, no worms,
no lice, no rats, no fleas,
no ticks, no caterpillars,
no spiders, no houseflies,
no mosquitoes -- nothing but
just plain simple quadrupeds
and alligators: and no quadrupeds
except fighting ones. Yet it
was as I have said: it took
three years to collect them,
and the cost of animals and
transportation and the men's
wages
footed up $4,500,000.
How
many animals? We do not know.
But it was under five thousand,
for that was the largest number
ever gathered for those Roman
shows, and it was Titus, not
Symmachus, who made that collection.
Those were mere baby museums,
compared to Noah's contract.
Of birds and beasts and fresh-water
creatures he had to collect
146,000 kinds; and of insects
upwards of two million species.
Thousands
and thousands of those things
are very difficult to catch,
and if Noah had not given up
and resigned, he would be on
the job yet, as Leviticus used
to say. However, I do not mean
that he withdrew. No, he did
not do that. He gathered as
many creatures as he had room
for, and then stopped.
If
he had known all the requirements
in the beginning, he would
have been aware that what was
needed was a fleet of Arks.
But he did not know how many
kinds of creatures there were,
neither did his Chief. So he
had no Kangaroo, and no 'possom,
and no Gila monster, and no
ornithorhynchus, and lacked
a multitude of other indispensable
blessings which a loving Creator
had provided for man and forgotten
about, they having long ago
wandered to a side of this
world which he had never seen
and with whose affairs he was
not acquainted. And so everyone
of them came within a hair
of getting drowned.
They
only escaped by an accident.
There was not water enough
to go around. Only enough was
provided to flood one small
corner of the globe -- the
rest of the globe was not then
known, and was supposed to
be nonexistent.
However,
the thing that really and finally
and definitely determined Noah
to stop with enough species
for purely business purposes
and let the rest become extinct,
was an incident of the last
days: an excited stranger arrived
with some most alarming news.
He said he had been camping
among some mountains and valleys
about six hundred miles away,
and he had seen a wonderful
thing there: he stood upon
a precipice overlooking a wide
valley, and up the valley he
was a billowy black sea of
strange animal life coming.
Presently the creatures passed
by, struggling, fighting, scrambling,
screeching, snorting -- horrible
vast masses of tumultuous flesh!
Sloths as big as an elephant;
frogs as big as a cow; a megatherium
and his harem huge beyond belief;
saurians and saurians and saurians,
group after group, family after
family, species after species
-- a hundred feet long, thirty
feet high, and twice as quarrelsome;
one of them hit a perfectly
blameless Durham bull a thump
with its tail and sent it whizzing
three hundred feet into the
air and it fell at the man's
feet with a sigh and was no
more. The man said that these
prodigious animals had heard
about the Ark and were coming.
Coming to get saved from the
flood. And not coming in pairs,
they were all coming:
they did not know the passengers
were restricted to pairs, the
man said, and wouldn't care
a rap for the regulations,
anyway -- they would sail in
that Ark or know the reason
why. The man said the Ark would
not hold the half of them;
and moreover they were coming
hungry, and would eat up everything
there was, including the menagerie
and the family.
All
these facts were suppressed,
in the Biblical account. You
find not a hint of them there.
The whole thing is hushed up.
Not even the names of those
vast creatures are mentioned.
It shows you that when people
have left a reproachful vacancy
in a contract they can be as
shady about it in Bibles as
elsewhere. Those powerful animals
would be of inestimable value
to man now, when transportation
is so hard pressed and expensive,
but they are all lost to him.
All lost, and by Noah's fault.
They all got drowned. Some
of them as much as eight million
years ago.
Very
well, the stranger told his
tale, and Noah saw that he
must get away before the monsters
arrived. He would have sailed
at once, but the upholsterers
and decorators of the housefly's
drawing room still had some
finishing touches to put on,
and that lost him a day. Another
day was lost in getting the
flies aboard, there being sixty-eight
billions of them and the Deity
still afraid there might not
be enough. Another day was
lost in stowing forty tons
of selected filth for the flies'
sustenance.
Then
at last, Noah sailed; and none
too soon, for the Ark was only
just sinking out of sight on
the horizon when the monsters
arrived, and added their lamentations
to those of the multitude of
weeping fathers and mothers
and frightened little children
who were clinging to the wave-washed
rocks in the pouring rain and
lifting imploring prayers to
an All-Just and All-Forgiving
and All-Pitying Being who had
never answered a prayer since
those crags were builded, grain
by grain, out of the sands,
and would still not have answered
one when the ages should have
crumbled them to sand again. |
