Chapter 2. Chesowanja and Lesotho ascend to humanity: Shimmer as the digging-stick maker tells how. Birth of The Nation in Chesowanja; The Nation migrates south. Jack and Sally invent the raft and curragh. The Nation moves to Lake Tanganyika. De Quincey uncovers the roots of Deep British: drag, trudge, trek.

The meerkaat hunter's tale. The nuclear family emerges with Sita and daughter Ahalya. Murk attacks. Ahalya is orphaned, then tormented. Murk's malevolence is traced back to a prior world. The universe of ten dimensions, and the beings who live in dimensions beyond our three-plus-time.

These tales are told as dreams to the English essayist Thomas De Quincey. Sita, Shimmer's other wife, dwells in Mary Wordsworth. Shimmer's lady ape discovers rawhide and invents the digging stick. She is murdered. Old Shiver strikes. Shimmer lives short lives, and De Quincey grieves.

Chapter 1. One and one-half million years ago, eastern Africa: hominids forage on the broad savannahs, but they are not yet human, although they do have souls. Some souls help the rise of Man; others work against it. Villains scavenge, rape, and kill, but Shimmer and Ahalya, two good souls, discover love and tenderness.