FABLES AND RIDDLES 369 



was not. I suppose he thinks in some vague, 

 formless fashion, if he thinks at all, that the human 

 essence, if it could be seen at the moment of dis- 

 solution, is a dim, faintly luminous shape, and that 

 it becomes less and less so as the years go by, until, 

 after an infinity of them, it gradually melts away 

 into nothingness, and forms anew some part of the 

 great scheme of Nature to waft onward mysteriously 

 toward final fruition the first feeble elements of 

 nascent life. 



The negro, all Africa over, revels in fables and 

 riddles, and it is very probable that the small child's 

 first recollections of human speech connect them- 

 selves with such sayings as — 



Q. Who builds a house without a door ? 



A. The hen. 



Q. Who Hves inside ? 



A. A chicken. 



And from the daily gathering of his mother's friends, 

 as they come along with their babies in the golden 

 light of early afternoon to sit under the eaves of 

 the hut, and chatter about all manner of things, 

 he hears strange stories of what the elephant said 

 to the locusts who ate up all his food ; how the 

 tortoise and the porcupine fell out ; what was the 

 cause of all the game running away when the white 

 man came ; and many more, grave and gay, print- 

 able and — ^the reverse. 



The stories and fables of the negro on the Zam- 

 bezi are not at all unhke those which have done 

 duty in many distant parts of the country, as weU 

 to the north as to the south. There is a strange 

 family resemblance between them, and as they have 



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