Lives of Alcyone

The people were evidently greatly astonished to see their
visitors, and indeed at first fled from them in fear, but presently they
ventured to approach and examine them more closely. Nothing in
the nature of clothing was seen, and the colour of the people was an
unpleasant and curious livid kind of lead-colour, probably produced
by this strange diffused light. Women were seen among them and
also, large numbers of children. They may have been a remnant of
some early Lemurian race, for they had many of the characteristics
of the blue egg-headed people, who at one time occupied a
considerable portion of the Lemurian continent. Among other things,
they were now somewhat below the ordinary height of men, though
broad and squat in appearance, whereas the ancient Lemurian
races from which they might have sprung were distinctly taller and
looser in build than the men of later races. If, however, they did
originally come from that stock, they must have been considerably
modified by long ages of sojourn under these unearthly conditions.
They may have belonged to a different evolution altogether, or
perhaps to that of the Inner round, in which case they would afford
an opportunity of human incarnation to those individualised animals
for whom there is now no humanity sufficiently primitive on the
surface of the earth.
These people still exist at the present day. There are many of
these cavities and some of them are peopled by tribes much more
advanced than those encountered by our adventurers. The mental
body of these people is not at all highly developed. Their speech is
an unholy compound of clicks and grunts, helped out with a good
deal of clumsy gesture. No ceremonies have so far been observed
among them. Marriage is between one man and one woman in