human
At length, but, alas! too late, we awoke to the danger of our situation. We drove them from our cities to the mountains, but ere we could take active measures to prevent a recurrence of these outrages, the other race we had fostered started up like a swarm of locusts, and declaring themselves our equals, demanded to be recognized as such. So preposterous was this demand, that we were at first disposed to treat it only as the suggestion of a disordered intellect, but, of course, could never comply with so degrading a request, for nothing we could do could invest them with strength, intellect, or form like ours. Soon after our refusal they too grew audacious, and forming a league with the savages, set up a king whom they said should make laws and govern the land. Then commenced a terrible war of extermination. This whole continent was drenched with blood. _We_ fought to save _our_ homes and our country, _they_ to gain the supremacy. It was not a battle of a year or of half a century. As many years as I have seen, the torrent was never stayed, and when an advantage was gained, on either side, life was never spared. By slow degrees, they possessed themselves of fortress after fortress, and city after city: _we_, the while, growing weaker, they stronger, until we were compelled to take refuge in the cities of our king. These cities were built and walled with granite, and we supposed them to be impregnable; and laying as they did in the _centre_ of the continent, and in proximity to one another, we hoped yet to withstand them. But, alas! we had another foe to encounter. Gaunt hunger and famine came with their ghastly forms and bony arms, blighting the strong and the brave. But it could not make traitors or cowards of us, and dying we hurled defiance at our foes. The walls of our cities unmanned, were scaled--the gates thrown open; and our streets filled with the murderers whom we had reared to exterminate us. A few were found alive, and these few were saved by the victors that the arts and sciences might not die. From these I am descended; but though we refused to transmit this knowledge to them, they treated us with great care, hoping that after a lapse of time we would amalgamate with them. But we were made of sterner stuff than that. We could see our race and nation blotted from existence, but not degraded. After the lapse of many centuries we were forgotten in the struggles of a half civilized race and the savages for supremacy, and my people dying out year by year, are all gone save _myself_, the last of the rightful owners of this continent.
gpt
Young man, I have told you of the past, and now there is a page of the future I will unfold to you. Your race shall possess the heritage of my ancestors. And as the savages exterminated us, so shall you them. But, beware, you too are fostering a serpent that at last will sting, and perhaps devour you.
human
The arts and sciences of your race speak of them; were they like ours, I said, anxious to learn more of this strange people:
gpt
Yours, he replied with more warmth than he had exhibited,
human
Is there any proof of this? is there nothing remaining to give ocular demonstration of these facts?
gpt
A few, said he.
human
Nothing very satisfactory, but what there is, you shall see.