Sir R. Burton, as we have seen, to establish Africa as the origin of the Fable. Yet Benfey promises (Pant. i., pp. 102, 183) to show traces of Indian influence on the fables of the Senegal negroes (Roger, Fables sếnếgalaises, 1828), and on those of the Bechuanas (Grimm-Hunt, ii. pp. 544-554), through the medium of Arab slave-traders. He nowhere carried out this promise, so far as I can ascertain, but I think I can confirm his conclusion by evidence from a most unexpected quarter. Most of my readers will remember the amusing collection of beast-fables from the slave-states of America known by the name of Uncle Remus. Nothing could seem more autochthonous or more remote from Indian influences, and they have already been adduced as convincing evidence of the ubiquity of beast-fables. Yet I am much mistaken if I cannot connect the celebrated incident of the "Tar-Baby," which forms the nucleus of the collection as motivating the enmity of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox, with one of the Jatakas or Buddhist Birth-stories. Every one will remember how Brer Rabbit, annoyed at the incivility of the Tar-Baby, chastises it with his right paw and left paw, with right leg and left leg, all of which stick to the "Baby," till at
