Knowing therefore how strong as well as wise and docile some of them were, and how swift as well as manageable many others, they now set themselves to secure their aid against the giants, and with loving, playful approaches, had soon made more than friends of most of them, from the first addressing horse or elephant as Brother or Sister Elephant, Brother or Sister Horse, until before long they had an individual name for each.

It was some little time longer before they said Brother or Sister Bear, but that came next, and the other day she had heard one little fellow cry, "Ah, Sister Serpent!" to a snake that bit him as he played with it too roughly.

Most of them would have nothing to do with a caterpillar, except watch it through its changes; but when at length it came from its retirement with wings, all would immediately address it as Sister Butterfly, congratulating it on its metamorphosis--for which they used a word that meant something like REPENTANCE--and evidently regarding it as something sacred.
One moonlit evening, as they were going to gather their fruit, they came upon a woman seated on the ground with a baby in her lap--the woman I had met on my way to Bulika.

They took her for a giantess that had stolen one of their babies, for they regarded all babies as their property.

Filled with anger they fell upon her multitudinously, beating her after a childish, yet sufficiently bewildering fashion.