Ajapa the Tortoise

by Margaret Baumann

  “Perhaps this is a plot to get rid of me!” he thought. But as he turned back, he saw far away the terrible flames of the fire which the villagers had made. After this the Lion was quite convinced, and he went off at once right to the edge of the desert, and decided never to go into the forest again, even when he felt very hungry.

  The villagers were extremely grateful for what Tortoise had done, and when he departed he advised them to light fires every evening outside the village, to scare away Kiniyun or any of his family who might come prowling near.

  After many days Tortoise again reached the town where the King lived with his Court. But news travels fast, and when he came to the end of his journey, the King had already heard all about the defeat of Kiniyun. He had prepared a splendid palace, with a great number of slaves, and in it Tortoise and his wife Nyanribo lived happily for many years.

  XXII. War About a Goat

  Once upon a time there lived a woman named Aina, who was very fond of animals.

  She had a small house but a very large garden, and in the garden she kept a great number of pets, including hens and ducks, a goat and a cow, a little leopard and a dog, and even lizards and snakes.

  Every animal which strayed into her garden was sure to be welcome, and after some time Aina became well known in the town for her pets, which followed her about when she left the house.

  But of all the animals, the one she liked the best was the goat, to whom she talked as if it were a human being, and who was, in fact, treated far better than any of the other pets.

  Now one day a man from the next town passed by Aina’s house. The man was called Ayo, and he was very hungry, and had no money to buy provisions. In Aina’s garden he heard the noise of hens clucking, a dog barking, a leopard snarling, and a goat bleating.

  He was so much astonished that he climbed on to the wall and looked down into the garden.

  He saw all the animals walking about there in a very contented way. He had felt hungry before, but now he was ravenous.

  “To think of such plump chickens wasting in this garden!” thought Ayo. “I will steal a chicken and take it home.”

  Then he changed his mind and said again:

  “To think of such good milk wasting here! I will milk the cow and relieve my thirst.”

  But when he saw the goat, which was so plump and well cared for, he changed his mind again and exclaimed:

  “To think of such a fine goat bleating here all day long! Really I must take the goat home with me!”

  So he a found means of entering the garden, and tied a rope to the goat’s neck, by which he led her as fast as he could along the road to the next town. But the goat did not care to go so fast, and he soon nibbled through the rope and ran away, leaving the man to walk on with the rope in his hand, and to arrive home very disappointed at having lost his supper.

  Now when Aina found that her goat had disappeared, she at once suspected Ayo, whom she had seen peeping over her garden wall. She ran to the King and told him that her goat had been stolen by a man from the next town; and the King was very angry, and sent his best warriors to attack the other town and bring back the goat.

  But the people of the next town were good fighters, and they too sent out their best warriors, and so war began.

  Meanwhile the goat had returned home and was bleating in Aina’s garden just as before. When the news of this reached the King, he at once commanded his warriors to cease fighting and return to the town, which they soon did.

  But the people of the other town were angry at having been attacked for no reason, and they in their turn came to attack the King, so that the war began all over again.

  Seeing how the matter stood, the goat, who was far wiser than most goats, thought it best to leave Aina’s garden, and he ran away and hid once more in the woods.

  Aina hastened back to the King, weeping, and said:

  “Your Majesty, I am a poor woman, but I still have to suffer because of the wickedness of that rascal Ayo. My pet goat has been stolen again, and who else would dare to perform such a deed but a man from the next town?”

  This time the King was very angry, and the war was continued fiercely.

  Thus no doubt it might have gone on for ever, if the people of the other town had not realized how foolish it was to fight so hard because of a goat.

  So they sent messengers to the King, with the following declaration:

  “The woman Aina says that her goat has been stolen by a man from our town. We will gather together all the goats in the town, and if Aina can pick out her own goat from among them, it shall be returned to her, and a large sum of money besides.”

  But they thought craftily that Aina would never be able to find her own goat among so many all alike, and they were quite sure that she would have to admit that the pet goat had not been stolen at all!

  This would certainly have been the case, if the goat, who was still hiding in the woods, had not heard of the declaration, and, being so much wiser than other goats, immediately set off for the town where a great muster of goats was being held. He took his place among them without anyone noticing him, and soon afterwards Aina came with an escort from the King, to pick out her pet.

  Alas! When the poor woman saw dozens and dozens of goats in rows before her, she despaired of ever finding her own, and walked up and down before them in great sorrow, not troubling to study them, for they all appeared exactly alike.

  Now the people of the town began to smile and to whisper: “The victory is ours! The King will have to pay us a large sum as compensation, because he fought against us for no reason at all.”

  Suddenly one goat came out from among the rest and went bleating up to Aina. Looking down, Aina recognized her pet, and flung her arms about the wise animal’s neck.

  After this there could be no doubt that the goat had been stolen, and Aina departed in triumph with her pet and a large sum of money to console her for what she had suffered.

  As they walked along the road, they passed by the wood, and in the wood Ayo was hiding, for he was afraid of being punished for the theft. As the goat went by, Ayo hissed:

  “Hateful animal! You have ruined me! I wish I had choked you that night with my rope, instead of leading you by it!”

  But the wise goat of course pretended not to hear!

  XXIII. The Elephant and the Rhinoceros

  Tortoise had nothing to do!

  He wandered along the bank of the river, looking for some means of passing the time. At last he saw the Rhinoceros, splashing about noisily in the water, and looking very cool and pleased with himself.

  Tortoise called out to him “Karo!” which means “Good-morning!” The Rhinoceros said nothing at all.

  “Ill-mannered creature!” thought Tortoise crossly, as he went on.

  Some distance away, the Elephant stood under a tree, lazily breaking off leaves with his trunk.

  “Karo!” said Tortoise hopefully.

  “Run away, silly Tortoise! Pop into your shell and don’t come interfering with me!” said the Elephant.

  Tortoise walked further on, wondering why everybody was so rude to-day. When he had walked a little way he retired into his shell, and thought how to pay back the Elephant and the Rhinoceros for their bad treatment of him.

  An idea soon came into his mind, for he was always ready for mischief. He found a long piece of rope, and then hurried back to the Elephant.

  “Karo!” said Tortoise. “Karo! Karo! Karo! Why won’t you say good-morning to me? I think you are very rude as well as weak.”

  “Weak?” grunted the Elephant. “Who said I was weak?”

  “The Rhinoceros said so,” replied Tortoise promptly. “He has been telling everybody that you are a weakling and that you have no strength in your trunk.”

  “What an insult!” said the Elephant indignantly, stamping with his great feet. “I can uproot big trees with my trunk.”

  “Is that so?” said Tortoise. “Then you can easily prove your strength. I will tie
one end of this rope to your trunk and the other end to a log which I saw floating in the river. If you can pull the log out of the river, then you are strong.”

  The Elephant laughed at this simple test, and readily allowed Tortoise to tie the rope to his trunk.

  Then Tortoise went to the edge of the river and called out to the Rhinoceros, who was dozing peacefully in the water:

  “Karo! Wake up and listen to me! The Elephant has been saying . . . But you are not listening. I will go away and tell someone else instead!”

  The Rhinoceros opened his eyes, blew a great puff of water from his mouth, and said:

  “Good-morning, Tortoise! How impatient you are! What has my friend the Elephant been saying?”

  “Your friend?” laughed the mischief-maker. “Your friend has been telling everybody what a lazy, dirty, weak creature you are! He says that you have no strength in your horn, and that you could not even knock down a frog.”

  “A frog?” spluttered the Rhinoceros. “What an insult! Who is the Elephant, after all, to spread insults about me, when I am far stronger than he is, and can knock down not only frogs but even trees . . . if I wish. Only, of course, it is much more comfortable to lie here in the nice warm mud and sleep.”

  “And while you lie there, everyone says that you are a weakling! Why don’t you show them how strong you are? Do you see this rope? I have fastened the other end of it to a tree. Let me tie this end round your horn, and if you can pull the tree down, then no one will deny that you are strong.”

  The Rhinoceros agreed, and allowed the rope to be tied to his horn.

  Then Tortoise gave a signal to the Elephant and the Rhinoceros. They both began to pull the rope, and each was surprised to find what a great weight there seemed to be at the other end. They pulled and pulled, while Tortoise stood behind a tree and laughed at them both.

  The tugging went on all day long, but the Elephant found that he could not pull out what he thought was a log in the river, and in the same way Rhinoceros could not succeed in uprooting his tree.

  At last, when it was evening and almost time for darkness to begin, the Elephant stopped pulling for a little while, and went down to the water to have a drink. At the very same moment the Rhinoceros stopped pulling too, and came up on to the river bank to rest.

  They were both very angry, but, as they met, the Elephant said: “What are you doing with a rope tied to your horn?”

  And the Rhinoceros said: “What are you doing with a rope tied round your trunk?”

  Then it suddenly struck them that Tortoise must have played them a trick, and they were both overwhelmed with shame. At last the Elephant said fiercely:

  “Where is that rascal Tortoise? I will trample on him with my feet.”

  “Yes,” said the Rhinoceros angrily, “and I will pierce him with my horn!”

  They set off at once to look for Tortoise, but you may be sure he was nowhere to be found, and to this very hour, he is still keeping out of their way.

  XXIV. The Abyss of Ajaye

  Once upon a time there was a brave and powerful King called Olofin, who ruled over an island called Iddo Island at the top of a very long and very wide lagoon.

  Young, strong, and handsome, Olofin searched everywhere for a maiden suitable to be his wife. But alas! Neighbouring princesses were either too dull or too ugly to please the young King, until at last it came to his ears that in a remote country there dwelt a chief named Oluwo, who had a most beautiful daughter. The rumour ran that this princess excelled in wit and accomplishments above all other women in the land, and when he learnt this, Olofin departed at once to behold with his own eyes the possessor of so many charms.

  Clad in the richest raiment, attended by many slaves, and bearing presents of great value, he left Iddo Island and travelled through wild forest and marsh until he reached the town where the remarkable princess lived.

  His arrival, heralded by the drummers, caused a great stir in the town, and Chief Oluwo himself hastened to meet him with a guard of picked warriors, all of them giants at least eight feet tall.

  “Welcome, King Olofin!” said Oluwo heartily. “To what do we owe the honour of your visit?”

  “I am here,” declared Olofin, coming to the point at once, “to seek the hand of your daughter in marriage, because I have heard glowing reports of her beauty, her wit, and her womanly excellence. For three years I have been seeking such a bride, and I am overjoyed at the thought that my quest is ended.”

  Oluwo assured him that he would be delighted to give his daughter to so illustrious a suitor, and they went into the palace of the Chief, where Olofin presented his host with some of the gifts he had brought with him.

  Just as Chief Oluwo was admiring a wonderful spear with head of gold and shaft of ivory, Olofin beheld a maiden of dazzling beauty peeping at him from behind a tree in the courtyard. Her hair was long and like a cloud, her eyes glistened like stars, and her pouting red lips disclosed teeth quite undistinguishable from the finest pearls. Heavy golden bangles encircled her slender wrists and ankles.

  As he gazed upon her, King Olofin fell violently in love. Darting forward, he seized the maiden’s hand and fell on his knees before her.

  “My princess!” he exclaimed. “How long have I sought you! And how inadequate were the praises which I heard concerning you! Well may your beauty be renowned throughout the land, for you are surely the most beautiful woman in the world!”

  The maiden withdrew her hand, and covered her face in confusion.

  “Alas, noble King!” she replied. “She whom you seek is within the palace. I am only her younger sister Ajaye.”

  So saying, she disappeared, and the bewildered King returned to his companions, thinking that the elder princess must be very beautiful indeed, if Ajaye, the younger and unknown, were so alluring.

  He expressed this feeling to Oluwo, who replied hastily:

  “Take no notice of that girl; she is a crocodile. My elder daughter is the one you must love. Let us enter, and she shall be brought before you.”

  They entered the inner part of the palace, and King Olofin was given a seat of honour upon a divan covered with velvet cloths. He awaited with impatience the entrance of the beautiful princess, but she absolutely refused to appear!

  Chief Oluwo was much embarrassed by this reply to his summons, and he went himself to fetch his daughter. But she still refused to show herself to her noble suitor, and not until late in the evening was she led into the room.

  King Olofin leaned eagerly forward to catch the first glimpse of the renowned princess, but what he saw filled him with amazement and anger.

  The princess advanced awkwardly, for she was as fat and clumsy as a rhinoceros. Her hair was scanty, her features were repulsive, and indeed Olofin could not discover a single charm about her.

  “Daughter,” said Chief Oluwo, trembling before her, “behold the princely suitor who has come to carry you away to his own country, leaving us desolate!”

  For a moment the young King was speechless, but he knew that unless he spoke at once, he would certainly be obliged to marry this hideous creature.

  “There has been some mistake!” he exclaimed. “This is not the lady who was described to me, and I cannot marry her.”

  On hearing this the princess started up, enraged, and cast upon Olofin a look of extreme fury as she uttered these venomous words:

  “You have scorned me, foolish Olofin. You will choose another in my place. But by the power of the charm which I wear round my neck, may she whom you wed be headless!”

  So saying, she rushed from the room, but not before the King had perceived that she wore, suspended on a gold chain, a very powerful charm, by which she forced her father and all his people to obey and admire her.

  But Olofin was a fearless man, and he himself wore a powerful charm, so that he laughed at her threat, and made many apologies to Oluwo for what had happened.

  Then he returned sadly to his own country of Iddo Island, where the people h
ad prepared to welcome his bride with great festivities. They were disappointed when he returned alone, and began to whisper that the great King would never find a princess worthy to be his wife.

  All this time Olofin was haunted by the memory of the beautiful maiden Ajaye, whom he had seen in the courtyard, and his love for her became so great that he felt he could not live without her. He resolved to undertake once more the perilous journey to the country of the Chief Oluwo, in order to see her. This time he took with him only one of his counsellors and a dozen well-armed slaves. After many adventures King Olofin and his little company reached Oluwo’s town. He was astonished to hear of their arrival, and hastened to meet them.

  The young King did not delay in stating the reason for his visit.

  “Last time,” he said, “I came with pomp and a large retinue to win the hand of a renowned princess, but this time I come humbly and without display to seek as my bride a little maiden whom I saw in your courtyard.”

  “My daughter Ajaye!” cried Oluwo. “Alas, King Olofin! She is a child, and without any accomplishments; a foolish maiden, unworthy to be your bride.”

  “On the contrary,” said Olofin firmly, “out of all the women in the world, she is the one I have chosen. She is indeed as beautiful as a young leopard, as graceful as an antelope, and I cannot live without her.”

  “Have you so soon forgotten the prophecy of the one whom you slighted?” asked Chief Oluwo, trembling. “I cannot bear to think that Ajaye should some day be headless!”

  But Olofin would not listen to such words, and to cut a long story short, he left the town soon afterwards with the beautiful Ajaye beside him.

  Loud were the acclamations with which the people of Iddo Island greeted the young Queen, who was soon beloved by all for her beauty and sweetness. She bore thirty-two sons to gladden Olofin’s heart, and many years passed pleasantly for them all.

  Now it happened after a very long time that a powerful enemy of King Olofin sent warriors in war canoes to Iddo Island, and they would certainly have conquered and slain everybody but for the charm which Olofin wore, which protected him in battle, and made him always victorious.