130. * Dolo toujou couri larivière. (L’eau va toujours à la rivière.)
“Water always runs to the river.”—[Louisiana.]
131. Doucement napas empéce arrivér. (Aller doucement n’empêche pas d’arriver.)
“Going gently about a thing won’t prevent its being done.”[50]—[Mauritius.]
[50] Literally: “Gently doesn’t prevent arriving.” One can reach his destination as well by walking slowly, as by making frantic haste.
132. Fair pou fair pas mal. (Faire pour faire n’est pas [mauvais] difficile.)
“It is not hard to do a thing for the sake of doing it.”—[Trinidad.]
133. Faut janmain mett racounn[51] dans loge poule. (Il ne faut jamais mettre un raton dans la loge des poules.)
“One must never put a ’coon into a henhouse.”—[Martinique.]
[51] A Creole friend assures me that in Louisiana patois, the word for coon, is chaoui. This bears so singular a resemblance in sound to a French word of very different meaning—chat-huant (screech-owl) that it seems possible the negroes have in this, as in other cases, given the name of one creature to another.