Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 15, 2025
All this in due time was accomplished; and with the robe once more packed on the shoulders of Pouchskin, the hunters returned to their headquarters. It proved as the Quan had promised them to be a black bear; not that his fur was altogether black, as is the case with the ursus americanus and the black bears of India.
One of these immense icicles was directly in front of the aperture; while on the ground just below its point stood up a huge mass of an irregular conical shape, the convex surface of which was coated with snow that had lately fallen. The first impression of the hunters was, that they had been deceived by the cunning Quan.
Going up to a sort of cliff that formed the side of a little stony knoll, the Quan pointed to a hole in the rocks, saying, as he did so: "Old nalle is in there."
Then Atoukama called to Quanqua to drive the ox across, but all she could get out of him was, 'QUAN? QUA? Quan? qua? At last she said, 'Oh! you stupid fellow, you're no good; stop here and mind the ox while I go and get help to drive him across. So off she went to fetch Ananzi.
With this idea, Pouchskin seized his axe, knocked the great icicle into "smithereens," and was about going to work upon the huge stalagmite that blocked up the entrance, when he was interrupted by the Quan. "With your leave, master!" said the latter, as he laid his hand upon Pouchskin's arm to restrain him. "Not so fast, if you please?"
With the Provençal song writers, the helplessness of the fallen elephant was a favourite simile, and amongst others RICHARD DE BARBEZIEUX, in the latter half of the twelfth century, sung , "Atressi cum l'olifans Que quan chai no s'pot levar." In the copy of it printed by the Historical Society of Science in 1841, and edited by Mr. WRIGHT, the following passage occurs:
There were old tracks of the peasant himself and of a dog, but not of a bear. "It's a decided take-in," grumbled Pouchskin. "Patience, master!" said the Quan. "There is a bear inside for all that; and I'll prove it, or else return you your money. See my little dog! he'll tell you old nalle is there. It was he that told me."
Here the Quan gave a significant shake to his hatchet, twirling it with the dexterity peculiar to his craft, for it so chanced that he was a woodcutter by trade. Our hunters, however, saw that this would never do.
It was just with this view that the Finnish peasant had put himself in communication with our young Russians; and as the bounty they had already offered far exceeded the usual purchase-money in such cases, the Quan at once closed with their offer, and conducted them to the "ring."
"Well, masters!" answered the Quan, "you see some jaggy points on the rock, at the top of the hole, there. I found it sticking there, where the bear must have left it, as he was squeezing himself into his cave that's how it was." "But surely," said Alexis, "you don't mean to assert that a bear could pass through such a hole as that? Why, a badger couldn't get in there, my man!"
Word Of The Day
Others Looking