776 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



All the young men who saw her wanted her, and many of them 

 sent presents to her father and mother, asking for her in marriage ; 

 but the maiden said she did not wish to marry. 



So, whenever men came to ask for her, the maiden continued 

 to refuse. She said, " My figure is good, my face is good, my skin 

 is good,* therefore I shall not marry till I find a young man who 

 pleases me." 



So many young men came that at last the father and mother 

 were tired of urging their daughter to marry, and they said to her : 

 " Very well, choose for yourself ; we will have nothing more to do 

 with it." 



And the maiden said : " Be not angry, O my father and O my 

 mother ! I am handsome, and I will only marry with one who is 

 handsome. If I meet such a one in the town, I will make such 

 and such signs to you when he walks with me to the door." 



Now the leopard, living in his own place in the bush, heard 

 this ; and he turned himself into a handsome young man.f 



He came into the town, and all the young girls turned their 

 eyes after him, for he was good to look at, and he wore a silken 

 cloth. 



He walked through the town, holding in his hand a duru, \ and 

 he played on it a tune that was melancholy and sweet. 



Now, just at this time the beautiful maiden had come out of 

 her house, and as she walked along the street she saw the hand- 

 some young man playing on the duru. And the sounds of the 

 tune he was playing went into her heart, and his appearance 

 pleased her, and she loved him. 



So she stood still in the street, looking upon the young man, 

 who came nearer and nearer. And when the young man had 

 reached her, he said, " Beautiful maiden, I am from a far country, 

 to which the fame of your beauty has penetrated, and I have come 

 hither to ask you to marry me, if you will so please." 



And the maiden smiled and was glad. But she turned her 

 eyes to the ground, and said to the young man : " O handsome 

 stranger, is it the custom in your country thus to ask maidens 

 to marry ? My father and mother are here, near by, and with 

 them lies the giving." 



Then she led the way to the house of her parents, and the 

 young man followed. And when she was at the door of the house 

 she made the signs to her father and mother so that they might 

 know that this was a young man whom she was willing to marry. 



* A smooth, glossy skin is considered a great beauty. 



j- In the Tshi variant of this story it is a python who personates a young man. 

 \ The native guitar, called sanku on the Gold Coast. It has four, six, or eight strings, 

 and is tuned in the diatonic minor scale, C, D, E flat, F, G, A, B, C. 



