WEST AFRICAN FOLKLORE. 779 



the lamentations of the young woman, and he crept up close and 

 lay hid. 



Then the husband said again, " I am hungry," and the wife 

 sobbed and wept, but said nothing, for everything was finished. 



Then the husband turned himself back into a leopard, and 

 crouched down to spring upon her. He was just making a leap, 

 when the hunter fired his gun, " Bang ! " and he fell down. He 

 was dead. 



Then the hunter came out of the bushes. He spoke to the 

 young woman and lifted her up. He cut off the tail of the leopard, 

 and took the young woman to his house, where he made her his 

 wife. 



And this is the way of young maidens. The young men come 

 to ask, and the young maidens refuse. They refuse again, again, 

 and again, until at last the wild beasts turn themselves into men 

 and come and carry them off. 



III. WHY THE HARE HAS LONG EARS. 



This is a story of the hare and the other animals. 



The dry weather was parching up the earth into hardness. 

 There was no dew, and even the denizens of the water suffered 

 from thirst. Soon famine came, and the animals, having noth- 

 ing to eat, assembled in council. 



" What shall we do," said they, " to keep ourselves from dying 

 of thirst ? " And they deliberated a long time. 



At last it was decided that each animal should cut off the tips 

 of his ears and extract the fat from them. Then all the fat would 

 be collected and sold, and with the money they would get for the 

 fat they would buy a hoe and dig a well, so as to get some water. 



And all cried : " It is well. Let us cut off the tips of our ears." 



They did so, but when it came to the turn of the hare to cut 

 off his ears he refused, and that is why his ears are so long. 



The other animals were astonished at this conduct, but they 

 said nothing. They took up the ear-tips, extracted the fat, went 

 and sold all, and bought a hoe with the money. 



They brought back the hoe and began to dig a well in the dry 

 bed of a lagoon. " Ha ! here is water at last. Now we can slake 

 our thirst a little." 



The hare was not there, but, when the sun was in the middle 

 of the sky, he took a calabash and went toward the well. 



As he walked along, the calabash dragged on the ground and 

 made a great noise. It said : " Chan-gan-gan-gan ; chan-gan-gan- 

 gan ! " * 



* The circumflex denotes a highly nasal sound. 



