“Massa Jack,” said Makarooroo, entering the hut and interrupting our conversation at this point, “de chief hims tell to me for to tell to you dat w’en you’s be fit for go-hid agin hims gib you cottle for sit upon.”
“Cottle, Mak! what’s cottle?” inquired Jack, with a puzzled look.
“Ho, massa, you know bery well; jist cottle—hoxes, you know.”
“Indeed, I don’t know,” replied Jack, still more puzzled.
“I’ve no doubt,” interposed Peterkin, “that he means cuttle, which is the short name for cuttle-fish, which, in such an inland place as this, must of course be hoaxes! But what do you mean, Mak? Describe the thing to us.”
Mak scratched his woolly pate, as if he were quite unable to explain himself.
“O massas, you be most stoopid dis yer day. Cottle not a ting; hims am a beast, wid two horn an’ one tail. Dere,” said he, pointing with animation to a herd of cattle that grazed near our hut, “dat’s cottle, or hoxes.”
We all laughed at this proposal.
“What!” cried Jack, “does he mean us to ride upon ‘hoxes’ as if they were horses?”
“Yis, massa, hims say dat. Hims hear long ago ob one missionary as hab do dat; so de chief he tink it bery good idea, an’ hims try too, an’ like it bery much; only hims fell off ebery tree steps an’ a’most broke all de bones in him’s body down to powder. But hims git up agin and fell hoff agin. Oh, hims like it bery much!”