KINDNESS OF HEART. 51 



failed, until the eel stood upon the tip of his tail, and 

 wriggled about so comically that the big frog liter- 

 ally burst with laughter, and the water poured from 

 him in such vast streams that there was presently a 

 deluge, and all the blacks would have been drowned 

 had not one of them made a large canoe by which 

 some of them were saved. 



KINDNESS OF HEART. 



Though there is a great deal of cruelty among the 

 natives, much of it is the result of their superstition, 

 yet occasionally there are evidences of real kind- 

 heartedness. As an instance of this we have the 

 following : It is a law among them that when one has 

 been convicted of stealing, he is punished by being 

 struck a terrible blow over the head, the person from 

 whom the theft has been made being usually the 

 executioner. 



One had stolen some sugar from another of his tribe. 

 He was sentenced to receive the ordinary punishment. 

 The man who had been wronged struck a blow which 

 would have smashed the skull of a white man. The 

 other never stirred, but simply looked up, the blood 

 streaming down his face. The executioner looked him 

 in the face, then turned the weapon on himself, and 

 with two or three blows, sent the blood streaming 



