第4章 HOW THE LEOPARD GOT HIS SPOTS(1)

IN the days when everybody started fair,Best Beloved,the Leopard lived in a place called the High Veldt.'Member it wasn't the Low Veldt,or the Bush Veldt,or the Sour Veldt,but the 'sclusively bare,hot,shiny High Veldt,where there was sand and sandy-coloured rock and 'sclusively tufts of sandy-yellowish grass.The Giraffe and the Zebra and the Eland and the Koodoo and the Hartebeest lived there;and they were 'sclusively sandy-yellow-brownish all over;but the Leopard,he was the 'sclusivest sandiest-yellowish-brownest of them all--a greyish-yellowish catty-shaped kind of beast,and he matched the 'sclusively yellowish-greyish-brownish colour of the High Veldt to one hair.This was very bad for the Giraffe and the Zebra and the rest of them;for he would lie down by a 'sclusively 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 would surprise them out of their jumpsome lives.He would indeed!And,also,there was an Ethiopian with bows and arrows (a 'sclusively greyish-brownish-yellowish man he was then),who lived on the High Veldt with the Leopard;and the two used to hunt together--the Ethiopian with his bows and arrows,and the Leopard 'sclusively 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,Best Beloved.They didn't indeed!

After a long time--things lived for ever so long in those days--they learned to avoid anything that looked like a Leopard or an Ethiopian;and bit by bit--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,'sclusively full of trees and bushes and stripy,speckly,patchy-blatchy shadows,and there they hid:and after another long time,what with standing half in the shade and half out of it,and what with the slippery-slidy shadows of the trees falling on them,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;and so,though you could hear them and smell them,you could very seldom see them,and then only when you knew precisely where to look.They had a beautiful time in the 'sclusively speckly-spickly shadows of the forest,while the Leopard and the Ethiopian ran about over the 'sclusively greyish-yellowish-reddish High Veldt outside,wondering where all their breakfasts and their dinners and their teas had gone.At last they were so hungry that they ate rats and beetles and rock-rabbits,the Leopard and the Ethiopian,and then they had the Big Tummy-ache,both together;and then they met Baviaan--the dog-headed,barking Baboon,who is Quite the Wisest Animal in All South Africa.

Said Leopard to Baviaan (and it was a very hot day),'Where has all the game gone?'

And Baviaan winked.He knew.

Said the Ethiopian to Baviaan,'Can you tell me the present habitat of the aboriginal Fauna?'(That meant just the same thing,but the Ethiopian always used long words.He was a grown-up.)And Baviaan winked.He knew.

Then said Baviaan,'The game has gone into other spots;and my advice to you,Leopard,is to go into other spots as soon as you can.'

And the Ethiopian said,'That is all very fine,but I wish to know whither the aboriginal Fauna has migrated.'

Then said Baviaan,'The aboriginal Fauna has joined the aboriginal Flora 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,but they set off to look for the aboriginal Flora,and presently,after ever so many days,they saw a great,high,tall forest full of tree trunks all 'sclusively speckled and sprottled and spottled,dotted and splashed and slashed and hatched and cross-hatched with shadows.

(Say that quickly aloud,and you will see how very shadowy the forest must have been.)'What is this,'said the Leopard,'that is so 'sclusively dark,and yet so full of little pieces of light?'

'I don't know,said the Ethiopian,'but it ought to be the aboriginal Flora.I can smell Giraffe,and I can hear Giraffe,but I can't see Giraffe.'

'That's curious,'said the Leopard.'I suppose it is because we have just come in out of the sunshine.I can smell Zebra,and I can hear Zebra,but I can't see Zebra.'

'Wait a bit,said the Ethiopian.'It's a long time since we've hunted 'em.Perhaps we've forgotten what they were like.'

'Fiddle!'said the Leopard.'I remember them perfectly on the High Veldt,especially their marrow-bones.Giraffe is about seventeen feet high,of a 'sclusively fulvous golden-yellow from head to heel;and Zebra is about four and a half feet high,of a'sclusively grey-fawn colour from head to heel.'

'Umm,said the Ethiopian,looking into the speckly-spickly shadows of the aboriginal Flora-forest.'Then they ought to show up in this dark place like ripe bananas in a smokehouse.'

But they didn't.The Leopard and the Ethiopian hunted all day;and though they could smell them and hear them,they never saw one of them.

'For goodness'sake,'said the Leopard at tea-time,'let us wait till it gets dark.This daylight hunting is a perfect scandal.'

So they waited till dark,and then the Leopard heard something breathing sniffily in the starlight that fell all stripy through the branches,and he jumped at the noise,and it smelt like Zebra,and it felt like Zebra,and when he knocked it down it kicked like Zebra,but he couldn't see it.So he said,'Be quiet,O you person without any form.I am going to sit on your head till morning,because there is something about you that Idon't understand.'