“Perhaps they might like to see you with yours bandaged, too,” said the Alo Man. “However, this is the story.”
Once the Rabbit went on a long journey, and lost his way. When he had wandered a long time he came to a town where there was a market place, but the market place was very still. There were many people, wearing bandages of white cloth over their faces, who were coming and going and exchanging their produce for brass rods, mirrors, trader’s cloth, and ivory trumpets. But none of them said a single word.
“Ho!” said the Rabbit, “this is a very queer place. Curious kind of people these must be.”
He spoke to one and another, asking for food and oil and offering to pay, but although they gave him all that he needed and took his beads in payment, not one of them said a word in reply.
It was so queer in that place that the Rabbit began to be frightened, and at last he left the market place and went on, looking back over his shoulder until he was out of sight. When he came to a house he found an old man, and he asked the old man what was the matter with the people of that market, who went and came and bought and sold, and never said a word.
“That is their custom,” said the old man. “A long time ago they got into the habit of quarreling and arguing with one another until nobody had any peace from morning till night. Each market day it was worse than the last. Finally the King heard of it and was angry with them for their foolishness, and he made a law that in that village, when the people went to market, each must leave his lower jaw at home.”
CHAPTER X
HOW THE CARAVAN SET FORTH
When the great feast was over and the guests had gone home, it was time to begin in earnest preparations for the caravan. This had been discussed by the headmen in the intervals of feasting and entertainment, and it had been agreed that one of the best-known wizards of that country should come and make luck charms and see that everything was properly done when the company took its departure. As this village was farther down the river than the others, it was to be the place of meeting.