Page:Where Animals Talk (West African folk lore tales).djvu/251

 Tortoise did not reply, but started off clear to the village of Boa. He said to Boa, "Come on!" Boa did not doubt at all that he was going to get Leopard. He started, and went with Tortoise towards the pit. When he was passing near the spot, Boa fell headlong into the pit, volumu! And Leopard exclaimed, "Ah! now, what is this?"

Tortoise only said to them, "You yourselves can kill each other."

A Cause, from which came the enmity between Leopards, and other wild animals, and Mankind.

Observe the resemblance to "The House that Jack Built."

Tortoise was a blacksmith, and allowed other people to use his bellows. Cockroach had a spear that was known of by all people and things. One day, he went to the smithy at the village of Tortoise. When he started to work the bellows, as he looked out in the street, he saw Chicken coming; and he said to Tortoise, "I'm afraid of Kuba, that he will catch me. What shall I do?" So Tortoise told him, "Go! and hide yourself off there in the grass." At once he hid himself.

Then arrived Chicken, and he, observing a spear lying on the ground, asked Tortoise, "Is not this Etanda's Spear?"