mainly to the help of one who naturally takes the greatest interest in all my pursuits.

In writing the last lines of this Preface, the interest which I feel for these Hottentot Fables is almost fading away before those rich treasures of your library which have just arrived from England; and as all our present efforts are of course given to the proper settling of these jewels of our library, I can merely send, with grateful acknowledgments, our most fervent wishes for your well-doing, and our sincere hope of seeing you, at no distant day, again in the midst of us.

Believe me,

My dear Sir George,

Yours most faithfully,

W. H. I. BLEEK.

CAPETOWN, April, 1863.

I.

JACKAL FABLES.

1. THE LION'S DEFEAT.

(The original, in the Hottentot language, is in Sir G. Grey's Library, G. Krönlein's Manuscript, pp. 19, 20.)

THE wild animals, it is said, were once assembled at the Lion's. When the Lion was asleep, the Jackal persuaded the little Fox* to twist a rope of ostrich sinews, in order to play the Lion a trick. They took ostrich sinews, twisted them, and fastened the rope to the Lion's tail, and the other end of the rope they tied to a shrub. When the Lion awoke, and saw that he was tied up, he became angry, and called the animals together. When they had assembled, he said (using this form of conjuration)—

* The little Fox, in Nama the !Kamap, a small kind of Jackal, who is a swift runner. The Jackal's name is Girip. (The / is the dental and the! the cerebral click ; vide Notes to Fables 23 and 27, pp. 47, 62.)

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"What child of his mother and father's love,

Whose mother and father's love has tied me ?"

Then answered the animal to whom the question was first put

"I, child of my mother and father's love,

I, mother and father's love, I have not done it."

All answered the same; but when he asked the little Fox, the little Fox said

"I, child of my mother and father's love,

I, mother and father's love, have tied thee!"

Then the Lion tore the rope made of sinews, and ran after the little Fox. But the Jackal said

"My boy, thou son of the lean Mrs. Fox, thou wilt never be caught."

Truly the Lion was thus beaten in running by the little Fox.

2. THE HUNT OF THE LION AND JACKAL.

(The original, in the Hottentot language, is in Sir G. Grey's Library, G. Krönlein's Manuscript, pp. 18, 19.)

THE Lion and the Jackal, it is said, were one day lying in wait for elands. The Lion shot (with the bow) and missed, but the Jackal hit and sang out, "Hah! Hah!" The Lion said, "No, you did not shoot anything. It was I who hit." The Jackal answered, "Yea, my father, thou hast hit." Then they went home in order to return when the eland was dead, and cut it up. The Jackal, however, turned back, unknown to the Lion, hit his nose so that the blood ran on the spoor of the elands, and followed their track thus, in order to cheat the Lion. When he had gone some distance, he returned by another way to the dead eland, and creeping into its carcase, cut out all the fat.

Meanwhile the Lion followed the bloodstained spoor of the Jackal, thinking that it was elands' blood, and only when he had gone some distance did he find out that he had been deceived. He then returned on the