VII.

RATTE MANGE CANNE; ZANDOLIE MOURRIE

INNOCENT.

The rat eats the cane; the innocent lizard dies for it. This is a creole paraphrase of two wellknown lines, one of Publius Syrus and the other of Horace. "Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur.' Quidquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi.”

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The innocence, that is, the harmlessness, of the lizard is almost as familiar a feature of serpent life in the tropics as that of the lamb among animals.

The Italians have a proverb which implies that the lizard's good name is not confined to the Antilles: Cui serpe mozzica lucerta teme. He who has been bitten by a serpent is afraid of a lizard.

1

At Naples, "whose luxurious inhabitants," says Gibbon, "seem to live on the confines of Paradise and hell fire," they have a joke

1 Memoirs of his own life.

upon their exemption from the misfortunes of their neighbors of Torre del Greco.1 Napoli fa I peccati, e la Torre li page. Naples commits the sins and la Torre expiates them.

The Germans have the same aphorism in different forms. Bei grosser Herren Handeln mussen die Bauern Haar lassen. Der Herren

Sunden der Bauern Busse.

These proverbs will recall to the historical student the story of Henry IV, when he abjured Protestantism, sending two proxies to Rome to undergo the chastisement which the pope was to administer, and bring back his absolution, also that of King James I, when a lad, though subject in all other respects to the discipline of Scotland, being allowed a whipping boy, upon whose back he could receive any punishment that his own misconduct might merit.

1A village in the suburbs of Naples, which has been already three times destroyed by Vesuvius.

VIII.

Want of charity for those who occasionally succumb to temptation is finely rebuked in a proverb, the application of which unhappily cannot be limited to the transgressions of slaves or heathen:

PETIT MIE TOMBE, RAMASSE LI; CHRETIEN

TOMBE, PAS RAMASSÉ LI.

If the millet falls, it is picked up; if the Christian falls, he is not helped up.

This proverb conveys a merited rebuke to those who assume that any amount of spiritual growth diminishes our liability to temptation, or that the greatest saint has any less of it to contend with than the greatest sinner, and who infer therefore that the professing Christian, and especially the clergy, who occasionally succumb to them, are on that account altogether hypocrites and impostors. It teaches a more profound theology and a more divine charity than is common even in the pulpit.

A little grain largely cultivated in the Antilles.

4

There are two other West Indian proverbs of the same import. Acoma1 tombe; tout moun di c'e bois prourri. The acoma falls; all the world says, 'tis rotten wood.

IX.

CHITA CHICHE.

The sitter is mean.1

Chiche in creole is the equivalent of a persistent sitter, who is naturally idle, and therefore remains poor, not uncommonly the synonym for inhospitality and meanness.

X.

That hope which, through a kind Providence, often saves the most abject and depressed from despair, frequently finds its expression in the following proverb:

1 The acoma is the giant of the West Indian forest. 'Mr. Hogarth, an intelligent Haytian citizen who came to Port-au-Prince from Maryland when a boy, once told me that this proverb was to be translated, "The sitter is selfish," or mean as you have it; that is, a man who has a seat is selfish and wont make room for one who has none.- Hunt.

JOUDUI POU OUS, DEMAIN POU MOIN.

To-day for you, to-morrow for me.1

This is a slight modification of our old English proverb. It is a long lane that has no turning.

No one familiar with the Bible can read this form of appeal from the present to the future, which the human heart instinctively makes in its hour of trial, without recalling the memorable occasion when such appeals may be said to have received their highest sanction on earth. When the chief priests, captains of the temple, and elders came out against Jesus with swords and staves as against a thief, he said to them, “When I was daily with you in the temple, ye stretched forth no hand against me: but this is your hour, and the power of darkness."

The country people about Cape Haytian, the day after the earthquake of May, 1872, which destroyed the town, gave a slightly different version of this proverb, when they rushed into the town for plunder, crying "Bon dieu cai nous tous ca hier pou ous joudi pon nous, the good God has given us all this (yesterday for you to-day for us).- Hunt.