Boys and girls also play at funerals. One will pretend to be dead, and the others will gather round in sorrow and mourn over the dead one and lift him up with great ceremony and bear him off for burial. But if I make this chapter any longer I am afraid I may tire you. Let me finish with just one more pastime. Some of the black children play at making little animals out of mud, just as white boys and girls play at mud-pies. The African women do not bake pies, so the children know nothing of the pleasures of mud-pie making. Instead, they make little mud dogs and hens and lions and snakes. These they put out into the sun where they get baked hard. They can then be carried about and played with. These games are some of the many played by African children, and I hope you will like reading about them. If you could only see the black children play them in this sunny land I am sure you would enjoy it and want to join them. I have watched them often, and as often wished I had a camera to take living pictures of African children at play so that you children at home might be able to see with your own eyes something of what I have but feebly tried to describe to you. CHAPTER VIII FAIRY TALES All Africans are great story-tellers. At night round the fire, when darkness covers the land and the boys appetites are appeased, many are the tales told. Let me translate one or two for you. THE STORY OF NALING’ANG’A Long ago there lived a man named Naling’ang’a. He was a very foolish man, for he smoked bhang, and the fumes of this deadly weed had run off with all his wisdom. One day the chief of the village in which Naling’ang’a lived ordered all the people into his gardens to hoe for him, so that the maize might not “walk” with the grass--that it, might not be overgrown. All the people obeyed the chief’s words and went early in the morning to the gardens, followed by the chief himself. But Naling’ang’a lingered on in the village to have a morning pipe of his favourite bhang. Afterwards, when all the people were already in the gardens hoeing away under the eye of the chief, Naling’ang’a came on alone. On his way he crossed over a stream and arrived at the plain near which were the chief’s gardens. Lying on the side of the path was an old skull that had been there for many a day, and which Naling’ang’a had often passed. But to-day, because he had been smoking bhang, he was annoyed at it, and took the handle of his hoe and struck the skull, saying, “Tell me, what killed you?” To his horror the skull moved, and said, “My tongue killed me.”