The wonder stick

Yet birds, wolves, and hyenas were not the only inhabitants of those houseless solitudes. Down by the brink of the river, where the waters had widened for a space to a smooth-flowing glossy expanse, a curious creature was threshing its way among the dense reeds and bushes. At the first glance one might have mistaken it for some monstrous beast, a cousin of the orang-utan or the gorilla; but a second glimpse would have shown one that it belonged to a more advanced race...FROM THE BOOKS.