Page:An argosy of fables.djvu/537

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AFRICAN FABLES
463

because I am old!" A Donkey next passed by and, being appealed to, said: "Eat the Man, and quickly! Men have always worked me hard, abused and half starved me! Now they desert me because I am old."

Last of all came a Rabbit. When asked for his judgment he said to the Crocodile: "How could a Man bring you here, a big creature like you?"

"All the same, he did it," answered the Crocodile.

"How did he do it?" asked the Rabbit.

"By binding me with cord, and carrying me through the jungle on his head."

The Rabbit told the Hunter to take the cord and show how he had bound the Crocodile. When this was done, the Hunter took the Crocodile once more on his head, and carried him back to the jungle where he had first found him. Then the Rabbit asked the Hunter: "Do you eat Crocodiles?"

"Yes," answered the Hunter.

"Then eat him, and quickly," advised the Rabbit. "Since the Crocodile intended to do you harm."

(Senegal Fable. From Collection de Contes et de Chansons Populaires.)


THE RAT AND THE TOAD

THE rat one day said to the toad: "I can do more than you; for you do not know how to run. You do nothing but hop—that is the only way you can run!"

When the toad heard these words of the rat, he said to him: "We will see whether you can do more than I. To-morrow I will do some-