A LIFE SAVED BY STORY TELLING

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 253, 1 September 1879, Page 2

A LIFE SAVED BY STORY TELLING

There is a tale told by a London cores pondent of" Progress," of-a sea captain who, in a distant corner of the Southern Seas visited an undiscovered or unexplored group of beautiful islands. After landing and trading with the gentle natives he was astonished by a white man, evidently a person of means and consequence, who after making himself very agreeable implored the captain, to give him a story book, if he had such a thing in his possession. The captain had, and deeply touched by the pigs and cocoanuts which the white exile had given him bestowed on him a copy of the " Arabian Nights' Entertainments,' Overcome by the present, the exile burst into tears, and cried " You have saved my life end given me rank and wealth." In explanation he said—"l should long ago have been eaten, but while they were fattening me 1 learned enough of their language to tell a child the story of "Littlo Red llid, ing Hood," The child repeated it, and the whole population were mad with joy." They had never head a story bofere, from that day I became a honored man. When they had a grand national festival I sit on top of a hill, and thousands wept (while some elderly relative was being cooked for a feast) at the cruel death of a grandmother, as caused by the wicked wolf. Iliad with me a volume of Fairy Tales," and I soon began to seta price on my performances' "Red Riding Hood" is rather worn; I only get a hundred cocoa nuts for her now, but ' Cindrella' is still good for four pigs and a turtle, wl 'Beauty and the Beast' brings six or seven according to the quality, But with the ' Arabia Nights' I shall be able to go on accumulating pork to the snd of my days,"