Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 18.djvu/850

830 other, 'Are you there?' and each one answered, 'I am here.' The Ostriches, hearing this, ran so tremendously that they quite exhausted their strength, and fell down. Then the Tortoises assembled at the place where the Ostriches had fallen, and devoured them."

II. "How the Tortoise provoked a Contest of Strength between the Tapir and the Whale" (Hartt, p. 20; Smith, p. 545; "Uncle Remus," p. 111). In Hartt, a Tortoise went down to the sea to drink, and a Whale made sport of him, but the former said he was stronger than the latter, and could pull him on shore. The Whale laughed, but the Tortoise went into the forest to get a long root, and, while, looking for it, met a Tapir, who asked him what he was doing. The Tortoise replied that he was looking for a root to pull the Tapir into the sea with. The Tortoise found his root, and tied one end to the Tapir and the other end to the whale (of course, both remaining in ignorance of the performance); the two then tugged against each other, and finally gave up the struggle from sheer exhaustion. In another version (p. 23) the cobra grande, or mythical great serpent, and the jaguar are made to pull against each other in the same way. Smith mentions a version he himself heard, and then gives Professor Hartt's. In "Uncle Remus" Brer Terrapin brags that he can out-pull Brer Bear, and, borrowing Miss Meadows's bed-cord, he gives one end to the Bear, and, diving down into the water, fastens his own end to a big root, and the Bear soon gives up pulling against Brer Terrapin.

III. In a version of another story, "How a Tortoise killed a Jaguar" (Hartt, p. 29; Smith, p. 542; "Uncle Remus," p. 60), the Jaguar is represented as reaching down into the burrow and catching hold of the Tortoise, who, resisting, calls out, "Oh, you foolish fellow! you think you have caught me, when it is only the root of a tree you have secured." In "Uncle Remus," the Fox, in revenge for what will be told in the following story, determines to kill Brer Terrapin, The latter begs piteously not to be drowned, and the Fox, taken in by this, souses him into the water, still holding on to him, when the Terrapin "begin fer ter holler, 'Tu'n loose dat stump, en ketch holt er me.' Brer Fox he holler back, 'I ain't got holt er no stump, en I is got holt er you.'" But at last he was deceived by the Terrapin's cry that he was drowning, and let go of him.

IV. In the last-mentioned story, "How a Tortoise killed a Jaguar" (Hartt, p. 26; Smith, p. 541; for one incident only, "Uncle Remus," p. 52), a Monkey carried a Tortoise up into a palm-tree to eat the fruit. When his hunger was satisfied, the Tortoise wished to descend, but the Monkey had gone, so the Tortoise had to remain there until a Jaguar came along and asked him why he didn't come down. The Tortoise said he was afraid, but the Jaguar said: "Don't be afraid! Jump! I will catch you!" Then the Tortoise jumped down and struck the Jaguar on the head and killed him. In Mr. Smith's version, collected at the same place (Santarem), the Tortoise, after