"With the skin of a thern, the black hair of a First Born
and the muscles of a dozen Dators it was no disgrace even for Xodar
to acknowledge your supremacy. A thing he could never do were you
a Barsoomian," he added.
"You are travelling several laps ahead of me, my friend,"
I interrupted. "I glean that your name is Xodar, but whom, pray,
are the First Born, and what a Dator, and why, if you were conquered
by a Barsoomian, could you not acknowledge it?"
"The First Born of Barsoom," he explained, "are the race of black
men of which I am a Dator, or, as the lesser Barsoomians would
say, Prince. My race is the oldest on the planet. We trace our
lineage, unbroken, direct to the Tree of Life which flourished in
the centre of the Valley Dor twenty-three million years ago.
"For countless ages the fruit of this tree underwent the gradual
changes of evolution, passing by degrees from true plant life to
a combination of plant and animal. In the first stages the fruit
of the tree possessed only the power of independent muscular action,
while the stem remained attached to the parent plant; later a brain
developed in the fruit, so that hanging there by their long stems
they thought and moved as individuals.
"Then, with the development of perceptions came a comparison of
them; judgments were reached and compared, and thus reason and the
power to reason were born upon Barsoom.
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