"And de people laugh and say it soun' like it say nuffin but 'Tim--tam! tim--tam!' "And Moss Nora say: 'Dot's whar you fotch up wrong. I got ter build this ark so tight de water won't leak thoo, and de people won't fall out, and dat hammer don't say "Tim--tam," no sich ting. Hit say ebery time I hits de jistes, "Repent! repent!"' "Dere's a spiritual what goes long wid it too, honey, 'bout de hammer an' de nails, but I don't know it. Hit's a ole, ole story dat we been singin' since de Flood--jes come down from mouf to mouf. Hist de Window is a ole tune, but not ole like dis one. Hit done come jis like I tole you." In regard to one song, at least, I have irrefragable proof of its African origin. Mrs. Jefferson Davis tells me her old nurse was a full-blooded African named Aunt Dinah. She would lovingly put her little charge to sleep with this doggerel: [Music: FADDING, GIDDING. Fad-ding, gid-ding, fad-ding go; San-té mo-lé, san-té mo-lé; Fad-ding, gid-ding, fad-ding go; Eb-er sence I born ma' han' 'tan so.] Aunt Dinah would also sing it pleadingly when begging for a present. She would begin the supplication with hands clinched tight, and open them quickly at the last line. She declared that she always sang it in this exact manner in her old African home whenever she was asking a favor, but she was never able to tell the meaning of any part of it except the last line, the African of which she had forgotten, but which meant that all black races are born with wide-open palms ready and waiting for other peoples to pour rich gifts into them. This she translated in her apt, crude way: "Eber sence I born, my hand stand so!" She had a relative named Moses, I think, who had three deep gashes radiating from each eye. Of these he was very proud, as he said they indicated that he was of the king's blood. Ten days have elapsed since the above was written. I feel like crying, "Eureka!" I have found my proof! After a diligent search for a real live African, I have found an educated convert to Christianity, who has been absent only two years from the wilds of the west coast of Africa. In broken English he sang for me several songs sung by the savages of the native Mendi tribe. The tunes sounded much like songs I know, but I could not take them down during this interview. All the songs I sang he said seemed very familiar--in certain portions especially so.