The Meeting of the Plants.
Once upon a time plants were able to talk as well as people, and to walk from place to place. One day King Molave, the strongest tree, who lived on a high mountain, called his subjects together for a general meeting.
Then every tree put itself in motion towards the designated spot, each doing its best to reach it first. But the buri palm was several days late, which made the king angry, and he cursed it in these terms:—
"You must be punished for your negligence, and as king I pass upon you this sentence: You shall never see your descendants, for you shall die just as your seeds are ready to grow."
And from that day the buri palms have always died without seeing their descendants.
CHAPTER 18
Who Brings the Cholera?
The Filipinos, being for the most part ignorant of the laws of hygiene, attribute the cholera to any cause rather than the right one. In general, they believe it to be caused by some evil-minded men, who poison the wells, or, sometimes, by evil spirits, as the following story will show.
Tanag was a poor man who lived in a town in the interior of one of the Philippine Islands. He had nothing to eat, nor could he find any work by which he might earn his food, and so he determined to emigrate. At that time the cholera was at its height.
As Tanag was rather old, he walked so slowly that in a day he had gone but three miles. At sunset he was crossing a sheltered bridge over a smooth brook near the sea, and determined to rest and spend the night there.