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How the Leopard Got his Spots
N 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.
THIS is Wise Baviaan, the dog-headed Baboon, Who is
Quite the Wisest Animal in All South Africa. I have
drawn him from a 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 Hierogliphic
and Cuneiformic and Bengalic and Burmic and Hebric, all
because he is so wise. He is not beautiful, but he is
very wise; and I should like to paint him with paint-box
colours, but I am not allowed. The umbrella-ish thing
about his head is his Conventional Mane.
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 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 and said, 'It ought to be
'sclusively a rich fulvous orange-tawny from head to heel, 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 greyish-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.
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.'
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 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, think of Zebra. They find their spots and stripes
give them per-feet satisfaction.'
'Umm,' said the Leopard. 'I wouldn't look like Zebra--not for
ever so.'
'Well, make up your mind,' said the Ethiopian, 'because I'd
hate to go hunting without you, but I must if you insist on
looking like a sun-flower 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.'
'I'll make 'em with the tips of my fingers,' said the
Ethiopian. 'There's plenty of black left on my skin still.
Stand over!'
Then the Ethiopian put his five fingers close together (there
was plenty of black left on his new skin still) and pressed
them all over the Leopard, and wherever the five fingers
touched they left five little black marks, all close together.
You can see them on any Leopard's skin you like, Best Beloved.
Sometimes the fingers slipped and the marks got a little
blurred; but if you look closely at any Leopard now you will
see that there are always five spots--off five fat black
finger-tips.
'Now you are a beauty!' said the Ethiopian. 'You can lie out
on the bare ground and look like a heap of pebbles. You can
lie out on the naked rocks and look like a piece of
pudding-stone. You can lie out on a leafy branch and look like
sunshine sifting through the leaves; and you can lie right
across the centre of a path and look like nothing in
particular. Think of that and purr!'
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.'
'But if I'm all this,' said the Leopard, 'why didn't you go
spotty too?'
'Oh, plain black's best for a nigger,' said the Ethiopian.
'Now come along and we'll see if we can't get even with Mr.
One-Two- Three-Where's-your-Breakfast!'
So they went away and lived happily ever afterward, Best
Beloved. That is all.
Oh, now and then you will hear grown-ups say, 'Can the
Ethiopian change his skin or the Leopard his spots?' I don't
think even grown-ups would keep on saying such a silly thing
if the Leopard and the Ethiopian hadn't done it once--do you?
But they will never do it again, Best Beloved. They are quite
contented as they are.
I AM the Most Wise Baviaan, saying in most wise tones,
'Let us melt into the landscape--just us two by our lones.'
People have come--in a carriage--calling. But Mummy is
there....
Yes, I can go if you take me--Nurse says she don't care.
Let's go up to the pig-sties and sit on the farmyard rails!
Let's say things to the bunnies, and watch 'em skitter their
tails!
Let's--oh, anything, daddy, so long as it's you and me,
And going truly exploring, and not being in till tea!
Here's your boots (I've brought 'em), and here's your cap
and stick,
And here's your pipe and tobacco. Oh, come along out of it
-- quick.
By: Rudyard Kipling 1902
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