"No?" she said. "But one cannot mate without the other surely.
Is not each then--virgin--before mating? And, tell me, have you
any forms of life in which there is birth from a father only?"
"I know of none," he answered, and I inquired seriously.
"You ask us to believe that for two thousand years there have
been only women here, and only girl babies born?"
"Exactly," answered Somel, nodding gravely. "Of course we
know that among other animals it is not so, that there are fathers
as well as mothers; and we see that you are fathers, that you come
from a people who are of both kinds. We have been waiting, you
see, for you to be able to speak freely with us, and teach us about
your country and the rest of the world. You know so much, you see,
and we know only our own land."
In the course of our previous studies we had been at some
pains to tell them about the big world outside, to draw sketches,
maps, to make a globe, even, out of a spherical fruit, and show
the size and relation of the countries, and to tell of the numbers
of their people.
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