How the Leopard got His Spots (1 of 3)

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HOW THE LEOPARD GOT HIS SPOTS

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.)

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