Crau

“ In its present condition, the Crau may be divided into two parts, that which is watered, and which has been converted into a garden, and that which is not as yet reached by the rich loamy waters of the Durance, and is therefore parched and desolate, overrun by herds of sheep and cattle, driven down in winter from the Alps, when a certain amount of herbage is found on the desert, which in summer is utterly dry and barren. ”

“ At all events no part of Gaul has as little changed its topography since ages past, and the strange aspect of the Crau is the marvel of all who see it. The pebbles are of all sizes larger than a grain of sand, and occasionally one has been found as big as one’s head. When such a treasure is discovered, it is put up in some conspicuous place for the native and the stranger to marvel at. ”

“ Now the two great plains formed by the delta of the Rhone, and that of the Durance into the Rhone, are called the great and little Craus. They were known to the ancients, and puzzled them not a little. Strabo says of the Great Crau: "Between Marseilles and the mouth of the Rhone, at about a hundred stadia from the sea, is a plain, circular in form, and a hundred stadia in diameter, to which a singular event obtained for it the name of the Field of Pebbles. It is, in fact, covered with pebbles, as big as the fist, among which grows some grass in sufficient abundance to pasture herds of oxen." ”

“ Until, away in Crau, the waste, the lonely,
Behold him, where the partridge whirreth only;
And, still remote, discovers he the flocks
Tranquilly lying under the dwarf-oaks,
And the chief-shepherd, with his helpers young,
For noon-tide rest about the heather flung,
And little wagtails hopping at their ease
O’er sheep that ruminate unmoved by these.
And slowly, slowly sailing o’er the sea
Diaphanous vapours, light and white, sees he,
And deems that up in heaven some fair saint,
Gliding too near the sun, is stricken faint
On the aerial heights, and hath let fall
Her convent-veil. ”

“ But Ourrias the brander left the spring,
The insult he had suffered pondering.
So moved to wrath was he, so stung with shame,
The blood into his very forehead came;
And, muttering deadly spite beneath his teeth,
He drave at headlong gallop o'er the heath.
Ah damsons in a bush, the stones of Crau
Are plentiful; and Ourrias, fuming so,
Would gladly with the senseless flints have striven,
Or through the sun itself his lance have driven. ”

“ During the summer time he travelled over the Crau and the Camargue, now helping the shepherds to shear the sheep, now the mowers of the marshes to bind the rushes, or the salters to collect and heap up the salt. Certainly no one could equal him in knowledge of the country of Arles and its work. He knew the names of every farm, and every pasture, of the head shepherds, and of each stud of horses or of wild bulls. And he talked of it all with an eloquence, a picturesqueness, a richness of Provençal expression which it was a pleasure to hear. ”

“ So the Serpent dropped the prey from her mouth unenjoyed.
Fable XXV.
THE CROW AND THE SHEEP. Many are in the habit of injuring the weak and cringing to the powerful.
An pestilent Crow had taken her seat upon a Sheep; which after carrying her a long time on her back and much against 450 her inclination, remarked: “If you had done thus to a Dog with his sharp teeth, you would have suffered for it.” To this the rascally Crow replied: “I despise the defenceless, and I yield to the powerful; I know whom to vex, and whom to flatter craftily; by these means I put off my old age for years.” ”

“ Surely a night-clerk in crow-town has an easy task. There need be no prolonged hammering on the door of the guest who would be called early. One tap is sufficient. I had hoped to stand beneath that tree and sight my crow in the gray of dawn, see him yawn with that prodigious black beak after he had withdrawn it from under his wing, then stretch one wing and one leg, as birds do, look the world over, catch sight of me and go off at a great pace, shouting a hasty warning to the world in general. ”

“ The Jackal watched his chance, and as soon as he had found the Stag alone, he began to say, sidling up to the Stag, and whispering in his ear—
"Beware of that Crow; he's fooling thee. Beware, beware all birds of the air. There's no trusting any [167] bird, let alone a Crow, who is worst of the whole feathered tribe. Now you and I, who never try in the air to fly, good honest gentlemen with four legs apiece, we are marked out for friends by Nature herself." ”

“ So saying, he wiped away a crocodile tear. He sat down and waited in the hope that the Stag would die, and then he would eat him.
But the faithful Crow was not far. Though his friend the Stag would not so much as cast him a look, the Crow followed him ever, biding his time; and now the time had come.
The Crow perched on a neighbouring tree, and said—
"Dear friend, I am only a weak little bird, and I cannot help you; but I can teach you to help yourself. My advice is, pretend to be dead, and when the Hunter comes, he will open the snare without any care, and you can escape." ”

“ So he pulled the halter and was taken half-fainting into the boat.
The crabs held his hand but he struck them off,
And his heart beat merrily as he breathed the wind
Blowing over the sea as blue as the sky in winter.
"There are no pearls in this ocean," he said to his companions,
"But there are crabs if any one cares to dive."
One of them saw the shell caught between the legs of the crabs.
He opened it and found a pearl of the value of a kingdom.
"The pearl is mine, but you may eat the crabs," he said to the fisherman. ”

“ Crow liked most of all was to watch the trains puffing along the railroad, which ran close to the river in that part of Pleasant Valley.
Sometimes he flew directly over the trains and raced with them. He often claimed that they were always trying to beat him. "But they can't do it," he boasted.
At last there came a day when something happened that made Mr. Crow feel prouder than ever. He had gone down to the village, wearing his bright red coat. And a little way beyond the furthest house he perched in a tree by the side of the railroad and waited for the train to pass. ”

“ Now I will ask Rain Crow to give you some words."
"My friends, you have done a great thing for your people," said Rain Crow, the Medicine Man. "Now we have many ponies. Some of them were Blackfeet ponies. It is good. Sun Bird, you are my son. Little Raven, you are my son. White [Pg 256] Otter, I have called you my son. All three of you were very brave. It makes me feel big. White Otter, you have done the biggest thing of all. Our people will talk about it a long time. I have finished."
When Rain Crow ceased speaking the Minneconjoux cried out for Sun Bird to talk to them. ”

“ A path once fairly differentiated by the successive passings of feet will keep, almost forever, a spell for the persuasion of all that go afoot. The old trail served the flat, shuffling tread of Kroof, the great she-bear, as she led her half-grown cub to feast on the blueberry patches far up the mountain. It caught the whim of Ten-Tine, the caribou, as he convoyed his slim cows down to occasional pasturage in the alder swamps of the slow Quah-Davic. ”

“ XI MR. CROW'S PLAN Yes! Old Mr. Crow had made up his mind about something. After Jasper Jay and Frisky Squirrel and Fatty Coon had come and crouched under his umbrella, and Christopher Crane had perched himself on top of it, and Mr. Crow had fallen off the fence, the old gentleman decided that he would take no more chances. The next time it rained he knew exactly what he was going to do. ”

“ Crow was sitting. Then, dropping nimbly from limb to limb, with the help of his hands and his feet and his tail, he stopped at last when he had reached Mr. Crow's level. [Pg 9]
One thing was certain. The stranger was bold as brass. He looked Mr. Crow up and down. And then he said:
"You're a gay old bird! What's your name?"
Now, no doubt some people would have been angry. But Mr. Crow rather liked to be called gay, because he couldn't help looking solemn. And most people knew he was very old. And everybody was aware he was a bird. ”

“ The Crows howled with glee over the ludicrous antics of the fellow, and set him such a pace that he was soon a perfect waterfall of perspiration, and was crying for mercy. At length he caught a crab and went heels over head backward on the ground, and they left him to recover his breath and his temper.
History had watched these proceedings with much amusement, but when he saw the hazers coming for him he lost sight of the fun of the situation immediately.
The head Crow now towered over the shivering little History, and said in his deepest chest-tones: "These Lakerim cattle are too fresh. ”

“ Fig. 4. "A fossil Shrimp, from Anspach."—Mr. Parkinson.
Fig. 5. "Impression of an unknown fossil."—Mr. Parkinson.
Fig. 6. "The claw of a Crab, from Maestricht, &c."—Mr. Parkinson. Claws of this kind are frequent in the soft sandy limestone of St. Peter's Mountain, but no other vestiges of the Crabs to which they belonged have been met with. The cause of this has been ascertained: the claws belong to a species of Hermit Crab (Pagurus Faujasii, of Desmarest) , which like the living species had the body covered by a delicate membrane, the claws only possessing a durable crustaceous shell. ”

“ Told and recorded by Balbír Prasád, Brahman,
of Mirzápur.
Stag and Crow are friends—Jackal covets Stag—Says, "A crow is not a friend for you; choose a denizen of earth like me"—They become friends—Jackal leads him to snare—Stag is trapped—"I cannot help you, because there is leather in the snare, and it is the Ekádashi (eleventh day of the lunar fortnight) when I fast"—Crow advises him to feign death—He does so, and escapes. ”

“ The rooks were too much occupied with their building operations to notice the enemy, but the peewits, who lay earlier in the meadow beyond, were calling uneasily, uttering that strange cry of alarm which is their special note of warning. On flew the carrion crow, the bird of ill-omen in the old ballads and a messenger of death according to old belief. Anyway, if not quite so evil as he has been represented, the crow is a bird that does great damage to keepers and farmers and has few friends. ”

“ I have caught a great many crabs with only one claw—large crabs, too—and it seems to me that if they were going to grow a new claw, in place of the one they have lost, a little claw would have started growing. And this I have never seen.
Anyhow, by knocking the crab from Patter’s paw the claw of the sea-creature was broken off and left hanging on the dog’s foot, though it no longer pinched. The one-clawed crab scuttled off sideways, which is the way crabs “walk” on dry land, and also the way they often swim, though sometimes they dart backward in the water. ”

“ They made him endless bows and never opened their mouths without calling him "Mr. Astrologer." Crab, who, although illiterate, was, as a peasant, cunning, all at once imagined that the servants must know about the ring, and this is the way his suspicions were confirmed. He had been shut up in his room turning over his big book and scribbling his paper for a month, when his wife came to visit him. He said to her: "Hide yourself under the bed, and when a servant enters, say: 'That is one;' when another comes, say: 'That is two;' and so on." The woman hid herself. ”

“ A magnificent black stallion was led up to Craven, and the Sheik soothed the beautiful quivering creature, caressing his shapely head with trembling nervy fingers. “He is my favourite, he will carry you well,” he murmured with a proud smile as he watched Craven handling the spirited animal. Mounted Craven bent down and wrung Mukair Ibn Zarrarah's hand and in another moment he found himself riding between Omar and Saïd at the head of the troop as it moved off followed by the ringing shouts of those who were left behind. ”

“ The sun which retraces its steps is a crab; the moon which draws back, or draws out, is also a crab, and, in this [Pg 357] respect, seems to hold the same place as the sea-urchin with the hundred oars, or of the dolphin with the scythe-shaped fin, which draws the chariot of the solar hero, or the solar hero himself. In the fable of Kriloff, the crab draws the chariot with the pike and the heron (the latter taking the place here of the crane, which we have seen above in connection with the crab, and which is also called in Sanskṛit by the same name as the crab, that is, karkaṭas) . ”

“ Sun, moon, and crow listen to him, and marry the three maidens. Some time after, the old man goes to visit his son-in-law the crow, who makes him mount a never-ending ladder, carrying him in his beak; but when they are high up, the crow lets the old man drop, and he dies.
Inasmuch as Indras, or Zeus, that is, the pluvial god, takes now the shape of a cuckoo, now that of a crow, the crow, in the fifteenth story of Siddhikür, announces the proximity of water to the thirsty prince. ”

“ Nothing particular occurred for some days after these events, except that, as the travellers were passing a low tract of sand, they perceived an unusual and gratifying spectacle; namely, a large number of Crabs and Crawfish—perhaps six or seven hundred—sitting by the water-side, and endeavoring to disentangle a vast heap of pale pink worsted, which they moistened at intervals with a fluid composed of lavender-water and white-wine negus.
"Can we be of any service to you, O crusty Crabbies?" said the four children. ”

“ At a turn of a road you come in sight of a solitary venerable crow—the sole surviving specimen of his race still extant in the county—whose life is rendered bitter by a system of unceasing persecution. He mistakes you for Mr Richard Griffiths Welford, and, with a caw of terror, takes flight across a Zahara of Swedish turnips. ”