96 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the farmer was sitting, lie cried : " Oh ! oh ! daddy farmer, I have 

 no money for thee. I will pay thee on the roof top." And he 

 jumped at once into the rafters, where he said, " I shall not come 

 down again." 



Since then Spider has not come down from the roof, for he 

 owes the farmer too much, and the farmer is still looking for 

 him. 



The eighteenth of Mr. Harris's tales, entitled Mr. Rabbit finds 

 his Match at Last, describes how Brer Rabbit runs a race with 

 the Terrapin, which the Terrapin wins by distributing his wife 

 and children at the different mileposts along the track, and by 

 concealing himself near the winning post, up to which he crawls 

 when Brer Rabbit draws near. In the introduction Mr. Harris 

 mentions a similar tale from the South Atlantic States, where the 

 Terrapin, by the same stratagem, wins a race that he runs against 

 the Deer. In this instance, however, the race is for a bride, who 

 is to marry the winner, and so the tale probably has reference to 

 the once widely distributed marriage custom known as "bride 

 racing." The Gold Coast tale, equally with that of Uncle Remus, 

 has no reference to marriage. It is as follows : 



THE FROG AND THE LEOPARD. 



One day the Frog challenged the Leopard to run a race with 

 him from Axim to Accra, and the Leopard answered: "This 

 is foolishness. A little slow-moving creature such as thou art 

 could not race with me " ; but the Frog said, " Yes, I will, and 

 we will then see who is a man " ; so the Leopard agreed, and they 

 fixed a day for the race. 



Then the Frog went to Axim, and he placed frogs all along 

 the road from Axim to Accra. He hid them in the bush, putting 

 here five and there ten ; and when the time came, the Leopard 

 came and called the Frog to go and race. 



When they started, they started together, and the Leopard at 

 once made one leap and came to Shamah, and when he alighted 

 on the ground he called " Frog," and a frog answered " Yaow." 

 The Leopard said : " What ! such a little creature as that can beat 

 me in a race ? No, it is not possible. I will go on again " and he 

 skipped from Shamah to Kommenda, and when he alighted he 

 called again, "Frog," and a frog answered "Yaow." Then the 

 Leopard was ready to scream with vexation, he did not know 

 what to do, and it was bitter to think that such a slow creature 

 as a frog could leap as far as he. 



The Leopard made another leap, and he leaped from Kommen- 

 da to Amkwana, and as he alighted he called " Frog," and a frog 

 answered " Yaow." The Leopard said, " What ! art thou here 

 again ? " and he was angry, and he made a bound from Amkwana 



