Mungo Park and the Frogs.
The tales of travellers often appear to us incredible, merely because they relate things different from our own observation and experience. You know that there are some countries so hot that they never have ice or snow there. Now it chanced that a man from some northern portion of the world, happening to be in one of those hot places, told the people, that, where he lived, the water sometimes became solid, in consequence of the cold, and almost as hard as a stone.
Now this was so different from the experience of the people, that they would not credit the traveller’s story. This shows us that a thing may be a reality, which is, at the same time, very different from our own observation and experience.
Mungo Park was a famous traveller in Africa. He went into countries where no white man had been before, and he saw places which no white man had seen. He tells us many curious things, but perhaps nothing is more amusing than what he says about the frogs. At a certain place that he visited, he went to a brook to let his horse drink; but what was his surprise to find it almost covered with frogs, who kept bobbing up and down, so that his horse was afraid to put his nose into the water. At last Mr. Park was obliged to take a bush and give the frogs a flogging, before he could make them get out of the way so as to let his poor beast quench his thirst.