Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/507

 The Bantu Ele^nent in Swahili Folklore. 443

They leave the Elephant to guard the well, and the Hare comes up with some honey. The narrator quaintly says, oblivious of the circumstances, — " He knocked (at the door and cried) Hodi ! and the Elephant answered, 'Come in ! '" He gives him a taste of the honey, and promises him the rest, if he will consent to be tied up ; he then eats the honey himself, fills his gourd at the well, and departs. The Buffalo then volunteers to guard the well, and meets with a similar experience. The Tortoise, who seems to have assumed the direction of affairs, then says, — " Every time I station a person to watch the water, you let the Hare drink! To-morrow I will watch myself!" He does so, hiding in the water. The Hare comes, finds no one, draws water, and then bathes, and the Tortoise catches him and holds him fast till the other animals arrive. Here nothing further is said than that the Tortoise " held him," but in the parallel story to which I shall refer presently the passage runs thus : —

"(The Tortoise) got into the water and sat at the bottom. The Hare came, and cried, — '■'■Hodi! hodil the well! What is this? Is there no one here to-day? Very good, I will draw water ! " He put in his right arm : the Tortoise seized it. The Hare cried out, — " Who are you ? I don't want this water ! I have water which is sweet, — let me go and you shall taste it I " But the Tortoise kept silence and held him tight. The Hare put down one leg, he put in both, and he seized him. He tried hard to get away, but the Tortoise held him fast" {Jiodari sana, i.e. very strongly).

It is a little difficult to see how the Tortoise could gather the Hare's members one by one into his mouth, which, so far as the story shows, was his only method of catching him, and keep a firm hold on them. In the original version, (though this is not expressly stated in all the variants), the Tortoise has previously covered his shell with some sticky substance. The Tete natives, in a story collected by Father V. d. Mohl, say "he took a great