THE DOWNFALL OF THE TORTOISE, iii 
when the challenge was made. At first the great 
monster of the sea took no notice, but the tortoise 
was so persistent that at last the whale took up the 
challenge to give the conceited little creature a 
much-needed lesson. The tortoise went off into the 
bush and brought back a long piece of very strong- 
bush rope. The whale took one end of it, and at a 
given signal was ready to pull with all its might 
and land the tortoise into the water. Whilst wait- 
ing near the beach for the signal, the tortoise was 
busy in the forest glades. He found and challenged 
an elephant to a similar trial of strength. The 
elephant, hating the tortoise, believed it saw a good 
chance of paying its enemy out, and greedily 
agreed to the tug-of-vvar. With the whale holding 
the rope at one end, and an elephant holding it at 
the other, the tortoise travelled until it stood half- 
way between, and, unseen by both, gave the bush 
rope a pull, and the struggle began. A tremendous 
trial of strength it turned out to be. Neither whale 
nor elephant could understand the tortoise possess- 
ing such strength, and finally the elephant followed 
the rope and found that his opponent was a whale ! 
Angry at being fooled, and made more angry still 
by the sight of the tortoise laughing at such sport 
until its sides ached, it lifted up its trunk and 
trumpeted as only an elephant can, and brought 
down its sledge-hammer foot on the tortoise's back, 
and so flattened it that it has kept that shape ever 
since. Perhaps the story which best shows how very 
much the tortoise lost when it foolishly parted with 
the bundle of wisdom, is the following one. A tor- 
toise was walking along a path feeling very hungry. 
He saw some tempting fruit upon a tree and deter- 
