"All history, I have come to believe, is the history of colonization, because all of us got to where we are from somewhere else"

Many the wonders but nothing walks stranger than man.

The thing crosses the sea in the winter's storm,

Making his path through the roaring waves,

And she, the greatest of gods, the Earth-

Ageless she is and unwearied-he wears her away

As the ploughs go up and down from year to year

And his mules turn up the soil.

Gay nations of birds he snares and leads,

Wild beast tribes and the salty brood of the sea

With the twisted mesh of his nets, this clever man.

He controls with his craft the beasts of the open air,

Walkers on hills. The horse with his shaggy mane

He holds and harnesses, yoked about the neck.

And the strong bull of the mountain.

Language, and thought like the wind

And the feelings that make the town

He has taught himself, and shelter against the cold,

Refuge from rain. He can always help himself.

He faces no future helpless.

There's only death

That he cannot find an escape from.

 

"Phew!" muttered Bob under his breath, and I wrinkled my

nose, too. The smell that assailed us defied description. But then

the thought occurred to me that some of our own civilized odors

are not too delicate either. What about the smells that hover over

some of our industrial cities-the smogs, factory stenches, un-

burned gas exhausts from a million noisy autos, garbage smells

drifting out of back alleys? I smiled. Probably an Aleut would

wrinkle up his nose at them. I guess it all depends on what you're

used to.