BY RUDYARD KIPLING
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 from
whose hat the rays of the sun were reflected in more-than-oriental splendour.
And the Parsee lived by the Red Sea with nothing but his hat and his knife and
a cooking-stove of the kind that you must particularly never touch. And one day
he took flour and water and currants and plums and sugar and things, and made himself
one cake which was two feet across and three feet thick. It was indeed a Superior
Comestible (_that's_ magic), and he put it on the stove because _he_ was
allowed to cook on that stove, and he baked it and he baked it till it was all
done brown and smelt most sentimental.
But just as he was
going to eat it there came down to the beach from the Altogether Uninhabited
Interior One Rhinoceros with a horn on his nose, two piggy eyes, and few
manners. In those days the Rhinoceros's skin fitted him quite tight. There were
no wrinkles in it anywhere. He looked exactly like a Noah's Ark Rhinoceros, but
of course much bigger. All the same, he had no manners then, and he has no
manners now, and he never will have any manners. He said, 'How!' and the Parsee
left that cake and climbed to the top of a palm tree with nothing on but his
hat, from which the rays of the sun were always reflected in more-than-oriental
splendour. And the Rhinoceros upset the oil-stove with his nose, and the cake
rolled on the sand, and he spiked that cake on the horn of his nose, and he ate
it, and he went away, waving his tail, to the desolate and Exclusively
Uninhabited Interior which abuts on the islands of Mazanderan, Socotra, and the
Promontories of the Larger Equinox. Then the Parsee came down from his
palm-tree and put the stove on its legs and recited the following _Sloka_,
which, as you have not heard, I will
now proceed to
relate:--
Them that takes cakes
Which the Parsee-man bakes
Makes dreadful mistakes.
And there was a great
deal more in that than you would think.
_Because_, five weeks
later, there was a heat-wave in the Red Sea, 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 whatever about the Parsee's cake, because he had
eaten it all; and he never had any manners, then, since, or henceforward. He waddled
straight into the water and blew bubbles through his nose, leaving his skin on
the beach.
The picture of the
Parsee beginning to eat his cake on the Uninhabited Island in the Red Sea on a
very hot day; and of the Rhinoceros coming down from the Altogether Uninhabited
Interior, which, as you can truthfully see, is all rocky. The Rhinoceros's skin
is quite smooth, and the three buttons that button it up are underneath, so you
can't see them. The squiggly things on the Parsee's hat are the rays of the sun
reflected in more-than-oriental splendour, because if I had drawn real rays
they would have filled up all the picture. The cake has currants in it; and the
wheel-thing lying on the sand in front belonged to one of Pharaoh's chariots
when he tried to cross the Red Sea. The Parsee found it, and kept it to play
with. The Parsee's name was Pestonjee Bomonjee, and the Rhinoceros was called
Strorks, because he breathed through his mouth instead of his nose. I wouldn't
ask anything about the cooking-stove if _I_ were you.]
Presently the Parsee
came by and found the skin, and he smiled one smile that 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, for 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 as ever it
could possibly_ hold. Then he climbed to the top of his palm-tree and waited for
the Rhinoceros to come out of the water and put it on.
THIS is the Parsee
Pestonjee Bomonjee sitting in his palm-tree and watching the Rhinoceros Strorks
bathing near the beach of the Altogether Uninhabited Island after Strorks had
taken off his skin. The Parsee has put the cake-crumbs into the skin, and he is
smiling to think how they will tickle Strorks when Strorks puts it on again.
The skin is just under the rocks below the palm-tree in a cool place; that is
why you can't see it. The Parsee is wearing a new more-than-oriental-splendour
hat of the sort that Parsees wear; and he has a knife in his hand to cut his
name on palm-trees. The black things on the islands out at sea are bits of
ships that got wrecked going down
the Red Sea; but all
the passengers were saved and went home.
The black thing in the
water close to the shore is not a wreck at all.
It is Strorks the
Rhinoceros bathing without his skin. He was just as black underneath his skin
as he was outside. I wouldn't ask anything about the cooking-stove if _I_ were
you.]
And the Rhinoceros
did. 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; and 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, where the buttons used to be (but he rubbed the buttons off), and
he rubbed some more folds over his legs. And it spoiled his temper, but it
didn't make the least difference to the cake-crumbs. They were inside his skin
and they tickled. So he went home, very angry indeed and horribly scratchy; and
from that day to this every rhinoceros has great folds in his skin and a very
bad temper, all on account of the cake-crumbs inside.
But the Parsee came
down from his palm-tree, wearing his hat, from which the rays of the sun were
reflected in more-than-oriental splendour, packed up his cooking-stove, and
went away in the direction of Orotavo, Amygdala, the Upland Meadows of
Anantarivo, and the Marshes of Sonaput.
THIS Uninhabited Island
Is off Cape Gardafui,
By the Beaches of Socotra
And the Pink Arabian Sea:
But it's hot--too hot from Suez
For the likes of you and me
Ever to go
In a P. and O.
And call on the Cake-Parsee!
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