Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 17, 1906.djvu/209

 Collectanea. 195

tree instead of working. A neighbour passed by with manure. " Where are you going ? " {the sluggard asked). " To manure and sow my ground." " Sleep is better," said the sluggard. In the autumn the sluggard was starving, and asked for bread from his neighbour, whose sacks were full of corn. But he answered : " He who sleeps in the morning has no corn in the evening."

XI. There was once a man who went a journey with his son. They began to be very hungry, when they saw a house hard by. So they went in and asked for something to eat. The son went into the kitchen to see it prepared. But there was nothing in the house except eggs. He said : " My father does not like eggs," and ate all there were. When he had finished eating, his father came and asked for the food. But there was none, for the son had eaten it. So the son was beaten, and the father remained hungry.

XII. There are several stories ridiculing the Berberines (Nubians), whom the Egyptian considers inferior to himself in intelligence. Here is one of them :

Once an Arab was telling a party of Nubians the story of Abu- Zet, how he conquered Tunis and the rest of the world, how he fought and overcame everyone and married wives. When the night was nearly over and the dawn was near, the Nubian said : " Here, you Shekh, tell me, was Abu-Zet a man or a woman ? "

XIII. Here is another :

Two Nubians were returning home from Cairo. When they saw Qubbet el-Hawa (the Shekh's tomb on the cliff north of Assuan) one said to the other : " You owe me twenty paras." " No," said the other, " I owe you only half a piastre." So they quarrelled with one another until an Egyptian said to them : " But twenty paras is half a piastre."

XIV. Perhaps the Egyptians have some ground for their low opinion of Nubian intelligence if the following story which I heard from one of my Nubian sailors is to be regarded as a sample of it :

There was once a man who stole a date and went home to eat it. His mother asked for some of it ; he refused, so she went and told of the theft. The neighbours came to take him, but he