The things we do!

The "men of
always" [Footnote: The Iroquois, according to Chateaubriand, called
themselves Ongoueonoue, the "men of always," signifying that they were a
race eternal, immortal, not to fade away.--"Travels in America," 2:93.]
had actually come and were to divide and distribute among themselves the
stores of millions of years as if reserved for them from the foundation of
the world.
When Deucalion and Pyrrha went forth to repeople the world after a flood,
they were told by the oracle to cast over their shoulders the bones of
their mother. These they rightly interpreted, according to the myth, to be
the stones of the earth, and so the valleys of the ancient world became
populous. Peopling _per se_ was not, however, the object or the first
object of the act under which the government, after the manner of
Deucalion, went across this new-world valley, casting in stoneless areas
clods of earth and tufts of virgin sod before it and behind it. It was not
people that the government wanted. Indeed, it was afraid of people.


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