flood, and every one was drowned except two or three men and women, who got on an island.  Past came the pelican, in a canoe; he took off the men, but wanting to marry the woman, kept her to the last.  She wrapped up a log in a ’possum rug to deceive the pelican, and swam to shore and escaped.  The pelican was very angry; he began to paint himself white, to show that he was on the war trail, when past came another pelican, did not like his looks, and killed him with his beak.  That is why pelicans are partly black and white, if you want to know, my little dear,” said the mother of Why-Why.

Many stories like this were told in the cave, but they found no credit with Why-Why.  When he was but ten years old, his inquiring spirit showed itself in the following remarkable manner.  He had always been informed that a serpent was the mother of his race, and that he must treat serpents with the greatest reverence.  To kill one was sacrilege.  In spite of this, he stole out unobserved and crushed a viper which had stung his little brother.  He noticed that no harm ensued, and this encouraged him to commit a still more daring act.  None but the old men and the warriors were allowed to eat oysters.  It was universally held that if a woman or a child touched an oyster, the earth would open and swallow the culprit.  Not daunted by this prevalent belief, Why-Why one day devoured no less than four dozen oysters, opening the shells with a flint spear-head, which he had secreted in his waist-band.  The earth did not open and swallow him as he had swallowed the oysters, and from that moment he became suspicious of all the ideas and customs imposed by the old men and wizards.

Two or three touching incidents in domestic life, which occurred when Why-Why was about twelve years old, confirmed him in the dissidence of his dissent, for the first Radical was the first Dissenter.  The etiquette of the age (which survives among the Yorubas and other tribes) made it criminal for a woman to see her husband, or even to mention his name.  When, therefore, the probable father of Why-Why became weary of supporting his family, he did not need to leave the cave and tramp abroad.  He merely ceased to bring in tree-frogs, grubs, roots, and the other supplies which Why-Why’s mother was accustomed to find concealed under a large stone in the neighbourhood of the cave.

The poor pious woman, who had always religiously abstained from seeing her lord’s face, and from knowing his name, was now reduced to destitution.  There was no one to grub up pig-nuts for her, nor to extract insects of an edible sort from beneath the bark of trees.  As she could not identify her invisible husband, she was unable to denounce him to the wizards, who would, for a consideration, have frightened him out of his life or into the performance of his duty.  Thus, even with the aid of Why-Why, existence became too laborious for her strength, and she gradually pined away.  As she lay in a half-fainting and