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‘How can I work,’ asked the Camel, ‘with this humph on my back?’
‘Today is Thursday. You will be able to work now for three days without any food’ said the Dji
And the Camel went away to join the Three. And from that day to this the Camel always wears a humph. But he doesn’t know how to behave.
How the Rhinoceros got his skin
Once upon a time, on an uninhabited island on the shores of the Red Sea, there lived a Parsee. And the Parsee lived by the Red Sea with nothing but his hat, from which the rays of the sun were reflected, and his knife and a cooking-stove. And one day he took flour and water and currants and plums and sugar and things, and made himself a cake. The cake was two feet across and three feet thick. The Parsee put it on the stove, and he baked it. He baked it till it was all brown and smelt most sentimental.
But when he wanted to eat it there came down to the beach a Rhinoceros with a horn on his nose, two piggy eyes, and bad ma
Five weeks later, the Red Sea was very hot, and everybody took off all the clothes they had. The Parsee took off his hat; but the Rhinoceros took off his skin and carried it over his shoulder as he came down to the beach to bathe. In those days it buttoned underneath with three buttons and looked like a waterproof. He said nothing about the Parsee’s cake. The Rhinoceros waddled straight into the water and blew bubbles through his nose. His skin was on the beach.
Presently the Parsee came by and found the skin. He smiled, and the smile ran all round his face two times. Then he danced three times round the skin and rubbed his hands. Then he went to his camp and filled his hat with cake-crumbs[11]. You know, the Parsee never ate anything but cake, and never swept out his camp. He took that skin, and he shook that skin, and he scrubbed that skin, and he rubbed that skin just as full of old, dry, stale, tickly cake-crumbs and some burned currants. Then he climbed to the top of his palm-tree and waited.
The Rhinoceros came out of the water and put it on. He buttoned it up with the three buttons, and it tickled like cake-crumbs in bed. Then he wanted to scratch, but that made it worse[12]. Then he lay down on the sands and rolled and rolled and rolled, and every time he rolled the cake-crumbs tickled him worse and worse and worse.
Then he ran to the palm-tree and rubbed and rubbed and rubbed himself against it. He rubbed so much and so hard that he rubbed his skin into a great fold over his shoulders, and another fold underneath. He rubbed some more folds over his legs. But it didn’t work. The cake-crumbs were inside his skin and they tickled. So he went home, very angry indeed and horribly scratchy.
From that day to this every rhinoceros has great folds in his skin and a very bad temper, because he has many cake-crumbs inside.
How the Leopard got his spots
Once upon a time, the Leopard lived in a place called the High Veldt. There were sand and sandy-coloured rock and tufts of sandy-yellowish grass in that place. The Giraffe and the Zebra and the Eland and the Koodoo and the Hartebeest lived there. They were exclusively sandy-yellow-brownish all over; but the Leopard was the exclusivest sandiest-yellowish-brownest of them all. He was the greyish-yellowish catty-shaped beast in that place. This was very bad for the Giraffe and the Zebra and the rest of them, because he liked to lie down by a yellowish-greyish-brownish stone or clump of grass, and when the Giraffe or the Zebra or the Eland or the Koodoo or the Bush-Buck or the Bonte-Buck came by he jumped and caught them. He did so! And, also, there was an Ethiopian with bows and arrows (a exclusively greyish-brownish-yellowish man), who lived on the High Veldt with the Leopard. The two hunted together – the Ethiopian with his bows and arrows, and the Leopard exclusively with his teeth and claws – till the Giraffe and the Eland and the Koodoo and the Quagga and all the rest of them didn’t know which way to jump. They didn’t indeed!
After a long time, the animals learned to avoid anything that looked like a Leopard or an Ethiopian. And bit by bit[13] (the Giraffe began it, because his legs were the longest) they went away from the High Veldt. They scuttled for days and days and days till they came to a great forest, exclusively full of trees and bushes and stripy, speckly shadows, and there they hid.
After another long time, the Giraffe grew blotchy, and the Zebra grew stripy, and the Eland and the Koodoo grew darker, with little wavy grey lines on their backs like bark on a tree trunk. Though you could hear them and smell them, you could very seldom see them: only when you knew precisely where to look. They had a beautiful time in that forest, while the Leopard and the Ethiopian were puzzled. Where are their breakfasts and their di
Then they met a Baboon, who is the wisest animal in all South Africa.
The Leopard asked the Baboon (and it was a very hot day),
‘Where are all the animals?’
And the Baboon winked. He knew.
The Ethiopian asked the Baboon,
‘Can you tell me the present habitat of the animals?’
And the Baboon winked. He knew.
Then the Baboon said,
‘The animals went into other place; and my advice to you, Leopard, is to go there as soon as you can.’
And the Ethiopian said,
‘That is all very fine, but I wish to know where they are.’
Then the Baboon said,
‘The animals changed their place, because it was high time for a change; and my advice to you, Ethiopian, is to change as soon as you can.’
That puzzled the Leopard and the Ethiopian. They went away and after many days they saw a great, high, tall forest full of tree trunks and shadows.
‘What is this,’ said the Leopard, ‘that is so exclusively dark, and yet so full of little pieces of light?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the Ethiopian, ‘but I can smell Giraffe, and I can hear Giraffe, but I can’t see Giraffe.’
‘That’s curious,’ said the Leopard. ‘I can smell Zebra, and I can hear Zebra, but I can’t see Zebra.’
‘Wait a bit,’ said the Ethiopian. ‘We saw them a long time ago. Perhaps we don’t remember anymore what they are like.’
‘Nonsense!’ said the Leopard. ‘I remember them perfectly on the High Veldt, especially their marrow-bones. Giraffe is about seventeen feet high, of a exclusively fulvous golden-yellow from head to heel; and Zebra is about four and a half feet high, of a exclusively grey-fawn colour from head to heel.’
‘Umm,’ said the Ethiopian, and looked into the speckly-spickly shadows of the forest. ‘Then they will soon appear in this dark place like ripe bananas.’
But they didn’t. The Leopard and the Ethiopian hunted all day; and though they could smell the animals and hear the animals, they never saw one of them.
11
cake-crumbs – крошки
12
that made it worse – стало ещё хуже
13
bit by bit – мало-помалу