out: "That is not my
tail you have hold of. It is a root of the tree. If you don't believe,
take a stone and strike it and see if any blood comes." The Lion goes to
hunt for a stone, and the Jackal crawls far into the hole. In the first
volume of Uncle Remus, Brother Fox tries to drown Brother Terrapin; but
the latter declares that his tail is a stump-root, and so escapes. The
Amazonian Indians tell of a Jaguar who catches a Tortoise by the hind
leg as he is disappearing in his hole; but the Tortoise convinces him
that he is holding a tree-root.[i_13] In the Kaffir story of the Lion and
the Jackal, the latter made himself some horns from beeswax in order to
attend a meeting of the horned cattle. He sat near the fire and went to
sleep, and the horns melted, so that he was discovered and pursued by
the Lion. In a negro story that is very popular, Brother Fox ties two
sticks to his head, and attends the meeting of the horned cattle, but is
cleverly exposed by Brother Rabbit.

There is a plantation proverb current among the negroes which is very
expressive. Thus, when one accidentally steps in mud or filth, he
consoles himself by saying "Good thing foot aint got no nose." Among the
Kaffirs there is a similar proverb,--"The foot has no nose,"--but Mr.
Theal's educated natives have given it a queer meaning. It is thus
interpreted: "This proverb is an exhortation to be hospitable. It is as
if one said: Give food to the traveller, because when you are on a
journey your foot will not be able to smell out a man whom you have
turned from your door, but, to your shame, may carry you to his." It
need not be said that this is rather ahead of even the educated Southern
negroes.

To compare the negro stories in the present volume with those
translated by Bleek[i_14] would extend this introduction beyond its
prescribed limits, but such a comparison would show some very curious
parallels. It is interesting to observe, among other things, that the
story of How the Tortoise Outran the Deer--current among the Amazonian
Indians, and among the negroes of the South,--the deer sometimes
becoming the Rabbit in the South, and the _carapato_, or cow-tick,
sometimes taking the place of the Tortoise on the Amazonas--has a
curious counterpart in the Hottentot Fables.[i_15] One day, to quote from
Bleek, "the Tortoises held a council how they might hunt Ostriches, and
they said: 'Let us, on both sides, stand in rows, near each other, and
let one go