“It is beautiful,” said the Pig. “How I should like to wear it for one day!”
“So you may,” said the Mouse-Deer, “but be careful, and do not spoil it.”
So the foolish Pig entangled himself in the folds of the Python, who soon crushed him to death and ate him for his dinner, and the clever Mouse-Deer escaped, having outwitted his enemies.
Sea Dyak Proverbs.
King Solomon, we are told, “spake three thousand proverbs,” and many of these, as well as proverbs of an older date, have been handed down to us in a more or less authentic form. A translation of them into English is to be found in a well-known book. King Solomon was perhaps the first to make a collection of proverbs, but long before his time proverbs were in common use. It would seem that in every age and in every clime the existence of language is accompanied by the existence of proverbs.
The Sea Dyaks have their proverbs, and these remind us of the lines:—
“Turn, turn thy wheel! The human race,
Of every tongue, of every place,
Caucasian, Coptic, or Malay,
All that inhabit this great earth,