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THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
in a state of Spartan simplicity. From the safety of a luxurious home to the wild front of the cyclonic storm in the twinkling of an eye the woman was borne with her children. If ever it were her province to comfort and console now v/ould come the test. Well might the strongest man sink under profound discouragement, since from the apparent sovereignty of nature he had fallen to be its slave, the very sport of the elements. Then indeed was woman’s task pre-eminently to soothe and cheer; to rouse his flagging vigor, to claim his utmost efforts, to send him forth to seek through the waving elements the scant sustenance still afforded by the desolated earth half buried under the debris of celestial and terrestrial wrack. And although the outside world seemed on fire, in those cavern recesses, dark and gloomy depths within the earth, fire seemed the first necessity, the treasure most desired, the sole reminder of those lost blessings, the light and warmth of home. Then it must have been that the fire-drill was invented or remembered? For who shall say through how many such cataclysms this earth has passed? The Aztec records say the next will destroy the world of existing civilizations. For the direct connection of the last with the relighting of the Sacred fire of the Aztecs we are indebted to Mme. Alice Le Plongeon, who has translated from the Maya language the story of the destruction of the land of Mr. Plato’s Atlantis. Geology shows more than one such convulsion; and the falling of Java head, and this year’s terrible Persian earthquake give proof of the activity of the internal fires.
In the bed of the Atlantic Ocean, near where the twenty-fifth meridian from London crosses the equator, there exists a submarine volcano or earthquake belt, the explosions or shocks of which agitate the waves to such an extent as to seriously menace all vessels sailing .near. What the evidence of today has verified must have been terrific in its effect. In those desolated margins of the world which had escaped destruction the first faint flame upon the rude cavern-hearth must have been cherished as the thing most desired. And when the earth gradually became staple, and the scant gleams of light returned across the sky, when the hollow in the rock could be moss-lined, and sheltered by a pent-roof of reeds, it was the woman’s hand that gathered at the fireside the fruits of the long day’s search or toil. When the scarred earth once took on the aspect of life renewed from the invisible source of things, hers it was to foster the germs of vitality outcoming from the war of the elements. As the gloom of the primeval storm was pierced by the shining lances of the sunlight she might dare to venture from the shelter of rock or cave to search for some edible root; or, following the trail of the few animals or birds that had strayed within her racked borders from the confines of some undestroycd land, to gather the seeds they might let fall or the eggs they might nest, or perhaps to find the young of this returning life. Some spoil of the chase surviving its wounds, and fostered by her, might become the firstling of her domestic flock, from whose hair or fleece her cunning hand could contrive a garment as boon inestimable. A few seeds falling to the ground and flourishing might grow into the first new harvest. Let us consider. As the woman grows helpful sh'e grows strong; her old spirit returning. She bears her share of the cultivation of the soil, the building of the house, the clothing of the family. She is again the helpmate and co-worker with man, as she is fabled in the Golden Age pictured in the legends of every country.
The hearth-fire built, the harvest garnered, the game brought to the fireside, the next step in the evolution of home is the development of the art of cookery. The first traces which we find of man’s efforts as a cooking animal show that he has progressed only in detail. The pre-glacial man laid hearth-stones, broiled and boiled his meats, and had used tiny scoops to extract the marrow from the bones in ages that have left us but the cave deposits for history. But we know from his own etchings that he drove reindeer, had horses, and carved the handles of his hunting knives; even scenes are rudely depicted, reindeer thrown down and entangled in their harness, and a man driving horses bitten in the heel by a serpent.
This definite characteqof the early form of cookery comes to us not only through