hem and cut their days short, until they at last forgot
how to live long, and cared not to think how their days might be
prolonged. And it has happened after this manner down to us who now
live. The whole earth has become filled with mankind, but the dead that
are gone and forgotten are far greater in number than those now alive
upon the earth.

Ye see now, my friends, what mischief the Toad did unto all mankind.
Had his conceit been less, and had he waited a little, the good Moon
would have conceived us of a nobler kind than we now are, and the taint
of the Toad had not cursed man. Wherefore abandon headstrong ways, and
give not way to rashness, but pay good heed to the wise and old, lest ye
taint in like manner the people, and cause the innocent, the young, and
the weak to suffer. I have spoken my say. If ye have heard aught
displeasing, remember I but tell the tale as it was told unto me.

"Taking it as a mere story," said Baraka, "it is very well told, but I
should like to know why the Moon did not teach Bateta the value of
manioc, since he took the trouble to tell him about the banana."

"For the reason," answered Matageza, "that when he showed him the
banana, there was no one but the Moon could have done so. But after the
Moon had given goats and sheep and fowls for his companions, his own
lively intelligence was sufficient to teach Bateta many things. The
goats became great pets of Bateta, and used to follow him about. He
observed that there was a certain plant to which the goats flocked with
great greed, to feed upon the tops until their bellies became round and
large with it. One day the idea came to him that if the goats could
feed so freely upon it without harm, it might be also harmless to him.
Whereupon he pulled the plant up and earned it home. While he was
chopping up the tops for the pot his pet goats tried to eat the tuber
which was the root, and he tried that also. He cut up both leaves and
root and cooked them, and after tasting them he found them exceedingly
good and palatable, and thenceforward manioc became a daily food to him
and his family, and from them to his children's children, and so on down
to us."

"Verily, that is of great interest. Why did you not put that in the
story?"

"Because the story would then have no end. I would have to tell you of
the sweet potato, and the tomato, of the pumpkin, of the millet that was
discovered by the fowls, and of the palm oil-nut that was