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 spotted and spotted, 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[75]. I can smell Zebra, and I can hear Zebra, but I can’t see Zebra.’
This is Wise Baviaan, the dog-headed Baboon, who is Quite the Wisest Animal in All South Africa.
I have drawn him from statue that I made up out of my own head, and I have written his name on his belt and on his shoulder and on the thing he is sitting on. I have written it in what is not called Coptic and Hieroglyphic and Cuneiformic and Bengalic and Burmic and Herbraic[73], all because he is so wise. He is not beautiful, but he is very wise, and I should like[74] to paint him with paint-box colours, but I am not allowed. The umbrella-ish thing about his head is his Conventional Mane.
‘Wait a bit’, said the Ethiopian. ‘It’s a long time since we’ve hunted[76] ’em[77]. Perhaps we’ve forgotten what they were like.’
‘Fiddle![78]’ said the Leopard. “I remember them perfectly on the High Veldt, especially their marrow-bones[79]. Giraffe is about seventeen feet high, of ’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 smoke-house.’
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[80].
‘For goodness sake[81],’ said the Leopard at teatime, ‘let us wait till it gets dark[82]. 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 quite, O you person without any form. I am going to sit on your head till morning, because there is something about you that I don’t understand.’
Presently he heard a grunt and a crash and a scramble, and the Ethiopian called out, ‘I’ve caught a thing that I can’t see. It smells like Giraffe, and it kicks like Giraffe, but it hasn’t any form.’
‘Don’t you trust it,’ said the Leopard. ‘Sit on its head till the morning – same as me. They haven’t any form – any of ’em.’
So they sat down on them hard till bright morning-time, and then Leopard said, ‘What have you at your end of the table, Brother?’
The Ethiopian scratched his head[83] and said, ‘It ought to be ’sclusively a rich fulvous orange-tawny from head to heel[84], and it ought to be Giraffe; but it is covered all over with chestnut blotches. What have you at your end of the table, Brother?’
And the Leopard scratched his head and said, ‘It ought to be ’sclusively a delicate grayish-fawn, and it ought to be Zebra; but it is covered all over with black and purple stripes. What in the world have you been doing to yourself, Zebra? Don’t you know that if you were on the High Veldt I could see you ten miles off? You haven’t any form.’
‘Yes,’ said the Zebra, ‘but this isn’t the High Veldt. Can’t you see?’
‘I can now,’ said the Leopard. ‘But I couldn’t all yesterday. How is it done?’
‘Let us up,’ said the Zebra, ‘and we will show you.’
They let the Zebra and the Giraffe get up; and Zebra moved away to some little thorn-bushes where the sunlight fell all stripy, and Giraffe moved off to some tallish trees where the shadows fell all blotchy.
‘Now watch,’ said the Zebra and the Giraffe. ‘This is the way it’s done. One – two – three! And where’s your breakfast?’
Leopard stared, and Ethiopian stared, but all they could see were stripy shadows and blotched shadows in the forest, but never a sign of Zebra and Giraffe. They had just walked off and hidden themselves in the shadowy forest.
‘Hi! Hi!’ said the Ethiopian. ‘That’s a trick worth learning[85]. Take a lesson by it, Leopard. You show up in this dark place like a bar of soap in a coal scuttle.’
‘Ho! Ho!’ said the Leopard. ‘Would it surprise you very much to know that you show up in this dark place like a mustard-plaster on a sack of coals?
‘Well, calling names won’t catch dinner,’ said the Ethiopian. ‘The long and the little of it is that we don’t match our backgrounds. I’m going to take Baviaan’s advice. He told me I ought to change; and as I’ve nothing to change except my skin I’m going to change that.’
‘What to?’ said the Leopard, tremendously excited.
‘To a nice working blackish-brownish colour, with a little purple in it, and touches of slaty-blue.
It will be the very thing for hiding in hollows and behind trees[86].’
So he changed his skin then and there, and the Leopard was more excited than ever; he had never seen a man change his skin before.
‘But what about me?’ he said, when the
Ethiopian had worked his last little finger into his fine new black skin.
‘You take Baviaan’s advice too. He told you to go into spots.’
‘So I did,’ said the Leopard. ‘I went into other spots as fast as I could. I went into this spot with you, and a lot of good it has done to me.’
‘Oh,’ said the Ethiopian, ‘Baviaan didn’t mean spots in South Africa. He meant spots on your skin.’
‘What’s the use of that?’ said the Leopard.
‘Think of Giraffe,’ said the Ethiopian. ‘Or if you prefer stripes give them perfect satisfaction[87].’
‘Umm,’ said the Leopard. ‘I wouldn’t look like Zebra – not for ever so.’
‘Well, make up your mind[88],’ said the Ethiopian, ‘because I’d hate to go hunting without you, but I must if you insist on looking like a sunflower against a tarred fence.’
‘I’ll take spots, then,’ said the Leopard; ‘but don’t make ’em too vulgar-big. I wouldn’t look like Giraffe – not for ever so.’
This is the picture of the Leopard and the Ethiopian after they had taken Wise Baviaan’s advice and the Leopard had gone into other spots and the Ethiopian had changed his skin. The Ethiopian was really a negro, and so his name was Sambo. The Leopard was called Spots, and he has been called Spots ever since. They are out hunting in the spickly-speckly forest, and they are looking for Mr. One-Two-Three-Where’s-your-Breakfast. If you look a little you will see Mr. One-Two-Three not far away. The Ethiopian has hidden behind a splotchy-blotchy tree because it matches his skin, and the Leopard is lying beside a spickly-speckly bank of stones because it matches his spots. Mr. One-Two-Three-Where’s-your-Breakfast is standing up eating leaves from a tall tree. This is really a puzzle-picture like “Find-the-Cat”.
80
they never saw one of them – они так и не увидели ни одного из них; never –
84
It ought to be ’sclusively a rich fulvous orange-tawny from head to heel… – Это должно быть совер-шенно бурым смугло-рыжим с головы до ног…
85
That’s a trick worth learning. – Это трюк, которо-му стоит научиться. This film is worth seeing. – Этот фильм стоит посмотреть.
86
It will be the very thing for hiding in hollows and behind trees. – Это будет как раз то, что нужно, для того, чтобы прятаться в низинах и за деревьями.very –