How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin

by Rudyard Kipling

　　ONCE upon a time, on an uninhabited island on the shores of theRed Sea, there lived a Parsee from whose hat the rays of the sunwere reflected in more-than-oriental splendour. And the Parseelived by the Red Sea with nothing but his hat and his knife and acooking-stove of the kind that you must particularly never touch.And one day he took flour and water and currants and plums andsugar and things, and made himself one cake which was two feetacross and three feet thick. It was indeed a Superior Comestible(that's magic), and he put it on stove because he was allowed tocook on the stove, and he baked it and he baked it till it wasall done brown and smelt most sentimental. But just as he wasgoing to eat it there came down to the beach from the AltogetherUninhabited Interior one Rhinoceros with a horn on his nose, twopiggy eyes, and few manners. In those days the Rhinoceros's skinfitted him quite tight. There were no wrinkles in it anywhere.He looked exactly like a Noah's Ark Rhinoceros, but of coursemuch bigger. All the same, he had no manners then, and he has nomanners now, and he never will have any manners. He said, 'How!'and the Parsee left that cake and climbed to the top of a palmtree with nothing on but his hat, from which the rays of the sunwere always reflected in more-than-oriental splendour. And theRhinoceros upset the oil-stove with his nose, and the cake rolledon the sand, and he spiked that cake on the horn of his nose, andhe ate it, and he went away, waving his tail, to the desolate andExclusively Uninhabited Interior which abuts on the islands ofMazanderan, Socotra, and Promontories of the Larger Equinox.Then the Parsee came down from his palm-tree and put the stove onits legs and recited the following Sloka, which, as you have notheard, I will now proceed to relate:--Them that takes cakesWhich the Parsee-man bakesMakes 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 Parseetook off his hat; but the Rhinoceros took off his skin andcarried it over his shoulder as he came down to the beach tobathe. In those days it buttoned underneath with three buttonsand looked like a waterproof. He said nothing whatever about theParsee's cake, because he had eaten it all; and he never had anymanners, then, since, or henceforward. He waddled straight intothe water and blew bubbles through his nose, leaving his skin onthe beach.Presently the Parsee came by and found the skin, and he smiledone smile that ran all round his face two times. Then he dancedthree times round the skin and rubbed his hands. Then he wentto his camp and filled his hat with cake-crumbs, for the Parseenever ate anything but cake, and never swept out his camp. Hetook that skin, and he shook that skin, and he scrubbed thatskin, and he rubbed that skin just as full of old, dry, stale,tickly cake-crumbs and some burned currants as ever it couldpossibly hold. Then he climbed to the top of his palm-tree andwaited for the Rhinoceros to come out of the water and put it on.And the Rhinoceros did. He buttoned it up with the three buttons,and it tickled like cake crumbs in bed. Then he wanted toscratch, but that made it worse; and then he lay down on thesands and rolled and rolled and rolled, and every time he rolledthe cake crumbs tickled him worse and worse and worse. Then heran to the palm-tree and rubbed and rubbed and rubbed himselfagainst it. He rubbed so much and so hard that he rubbed hisskin into a great fold over his shoulders, and another foldunderneath, where the buttons used to be (but he rubbed thebuttons off), and he rubbed some more folds over his legs. Andit spoiled his temper, but it didn't make the least difference tothe cake-crumbs. They were inside his skin and they tickled. Sohe went home, very angry indeed and horribly scratchy; and fromthat day to this every rhinoceros has great folds in his skin anda 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 inmore-than-oriental splendour, packed up his cooking-stove, andwent away in the direction of Orotavo, Amygdala, the UplandMeadows 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 0. And call on the Cake-Parsee!