Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 41.djvu/56

46 taking; but merely to present to the public a curious example of an evolution of folk lore which has come to my notice, and trace its passage for a few generations.

This story came to me from a gentleman who was born about the beginning of this century in Essequibo, British Guiana, South America. His father was an English planter, and owned estates and slaves. Brought up, as was the narrator, among these slaves, he heard from them many of the traditions of their race, which his excellent memory preserved in their original entirety. Perhaps the most pleasing of these which his kindly spirit prompted him to relate for the amusement of children, and the only one of which I have any clear recollection, was—

—Once upon a time a hunter lived in a little hut on the edge of a great wood in Africa. He lived by himself, for his father and mother had died many years before, leaving him nothing but the hut in which he dwelt, and three magic arrows, which he was only to use in time of great danger. This hunter had two very large and fierce dogs one called Ya-me-o-ro, and the other Con-ga-mo-ro-to—which followed him everywhere he went. In this wood was a great herd of white cows, which the hunter killed when he had need of meat, and whose skins he dried and made into clothes. These cows hated the hunter, and would have torn him in pieces many times, had it not been for his faithful dogs, that always hunted with him, and which the cows feared to attack. So the hunter lived peacefully, and for many a day all went well with him.

One evening about sunset the hunter, while seated in his hut, heard cries and groans coming from the woods; and, taking his dogs, went out to find the cause of them. He had not gone far when he came upon a fair, strange woman, lying upon the ground, apparently in great distress. She was tall and slender, and more beautiful than any one that he had ever seen. When she saw him she begged for food and shelter, saying that she was dying of hunger and thirst, and had fallen fainting where he had found her. The hunter carried her back to his hut, and nursed her as tenderly as he could until she became well and strong again. "When she was herself again, she thanked him for his goodness, and said that on the next day she must set out on the journey which she was making when she fell sick. Then for the first time the hunter felt what it was to be lonely; for as he had always lived by himself he had never before missed the company of other people. So he entreated her not to leave him, and the fair stranger, seeing his loneliness and remembering his kindness, stayed with him and became his wife.

Not many days after this the hunter started in the morning to hunt, and called his dogs to go with him; but the fair stranger