“Good morning,” said the other, also bowing respectfully.
Then they sank down in a shady spot, for they were very tired and lame from trying to walk on their hind feet.
“Where are you going?” asked the Ozaka frog. “This is a fine day for a journey.”
“I set out to see the great ocean at Ozaka, of which I have heard so often,” replied the frog who lived in the well, “but I am so tired that I think I shall be satisfied with looking at it from the top of this hill.”
“I am going to Kioto,” said the other frog.
“It is a long journey, my friend,” said the Kioto frog. “Why do you not look at it from this hill and save yourself the trouble of walking all the way?”
“That is a good plan, friend,” said the frog from Ozaka.
Then the two frogs climbed to the top of a flat rock, and stood up on their hind legs, the Kioto frog facing the great ocean at Ozaka, and the other facing the city of Kioto. A frog’s eyes, as you know very well, are so placed that when he sits comfortably at home on his lily-pad, he looks before him. But when he stands on his hind legs with his head in the air, he sees only what is behind him. Standing in this way, on top of the rock, the frogs looked long and steadily at the landscape. At last, being very tired, they sat down again.
“Ozaka looks exactly like my home,” said the Kioto frog; “and as for the ocean, I saw nothing larger than the brook I swam across this morning.”