sown. Here the young forms seemed to survive, while, to find
accommodation for them, the old ones perished; everywhere he looked
they were withering and dying, without any ostensible cause--they
were simply being killed by new life.

Other creatures sported so wildly, in front of his very eyes, that
they became of different "kingdoms" altogether. For example, a fruit
was lying on the ground, of the size and shape of a lemon, but with a
tougher skin. He picked it up, intending to eat the contained pulp;
but inside it was a fully formed young tree, just on the point of
bursting its shell. Maskull threw it away upstream. It floated back
toward him; by the time he was even with it, its downward motion had
stopped and it was swimming against the current. He fished it out
and discovered that it had sprouted six rudimentary legs.

Maskull sang no paeans of praise in honour of the gloriously
overcrowded valley. On the contrary, he felt deeply cynical and
depressed. He thought that the unseen power--whether it was called
Nature, Life, Will, or God--that was so frantic to rush forward and
occupy this small, vulgar, contemptible world, could not possess very
high aims and was not worth much. How this sordid struggle for an
hour or two of physical existence could ever be regarded as a deeply
earnest and important business was beyond his comprehension The
atmosphere choked him, he longed for air and space. Thrusting his
way through to the side of the ravine, he began to climb the
overhanging cliff, swinging his way up from tree to tree.

When he arrived at the top, Branchspell beat down on him with such
brutal, white intensity that he saw that there was no staying there.
He looked around, to ascertain what part of the country he had come