on of female
beauty or charms they are quite satisfied and content with
any woman possessing even the greatest amount of hideous
ugliness with which nature has so bountifully provided
them."

A QUEER STORY

Thus we find the African mind differing from ours as widely as a
picture seen directly with the eyes differs from one reflected in a
concave mirror. This is vividly illustrated by a quaint story recorded
in the _Folk Tales of Angola_ (_Memoirs of Amer. Folk Lore Soc._, Vol.
I., 1804, 235-39), of which the following is a condensed version:

An elderly man had an only child, a daughter. This
daughter, a number of men wanted her. But whenever a
suitor came, her father demanded of him a living deer;
and then they all gave up, saying, "The living deer, we
cannot get it."

One day two men came, each asking for the daughter. The
father answered as usual, "He who brings me the living
deer; the same, I will give him my daughter."

The two men made up their minds to hunt for the living
deer in the forest. They came across one and pursued
it; but one of them soon got tired and said to himself:
"That woman will destroy my life. Shall I suffer
distress because of a woman? If I bring her home, if
she dies, would I seek another? I will not run again to
catch a living deer. I never saw it, that a girl was
wooed with a living deer." And he gave up the chase.

The other man persevered and caught the deer. When he
approached with it, his companion said, "Friend, the
deer, didst thou catch it indeed?" Then the other: "I
caught it. The girl delights me much. Rather I would
sleep in forest, than to fail to catch it."

Then they returned to the father and brought him the
deer. But the father called four old men, told them
what had happened, and asked them to choose a
son-in-law for him among the two hunters. Being
questioned by the aged men, the successful hunter said:
"My comrade pursued and gave up; I, your daughter
charmed me much, even to the heart, and I pursued the
deer till it gave in.... My comrade he came only to
accompany me."

Then the other was asked why he gave up the chase, if
he wanted the girl, and he replied: "I never saw that
they wooed a girl with a deer.... When I saw the great
running I said, 'No, that woman will co