Meanwhile, a couple of hundred years earlier, certain of the Angry-Sackmen and their neighbours, who were being persecuted or oppressed or just felt like a change of scene, had taken to the big boats and travelled across the ocean.  There they reached a place they called the New World, though it had probably been there as long as the rest of the planet.  It was a green and fertile country full of  wholesome plants, diverse wildlife and peaceful Muttons who didn’t know about gunpowder or chicken-pox.

So very soon the travellers stopped being persecuted and oppressed and learned how to do a bit of p&o on their own account.  They became known as the Unmerry Ones, probably due to indigestion after eating the bison and wild turkeys.  The Unmerry Ones were a bit behind the Angry-Sackmen when it came to burning Cole, partly because they had inherited half a continent of virgin woodland and partly because a few million darker skinned Muttons had very kindly crossed the ocean to help out with the harvest.

But they were soon to catch up, with the help of some more ancient black stuff. It all started quietly enough.  For many centuries, especially since reading in bed had caught on, the Muttons had been experimenting with different ways of lighting their buildings.  They’d tried various vegetable oils, beeswax, tallow and lard (more inconvenience for their four-legged neighbours), alcohol, turpentine and whale blubber (most unfortunate of all for the whales, who were almost extinct on the planet after a few years).