• Rudyard Kipling - How The Rhinoceros Got His Skin

  • Aug 28 2023
  • Length: 5 mins
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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars (1 rating)

Rudyard Kipling - How The Rhinoceros Got His Skin

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  • HOW THE RHINOCEROS GOT HIS SKINONCE 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 reflectedin more-than-oriental splendour. And the Parsee lived by the Red Seawith nothing but his hat and his knife and a cooking-stove of the kindthat you must particularly never touch. And one day he took flour andwater and currants and plums and sugar and things, and made himself onecake which was two feet across and three feet thick. It was indeed aSuperior Comestible (that’s magic), and he put it on stove because hewas allowed to cook on the stove, and he baked it and he baked it tillit was all done brown and smelt most sentimental. But just as hewas going to eat it there came down to the beach from the AltogetherUninhabited Interior one Rhinoceros with a horn on his nose, two piggyeyes, and few manners. In those days the Rhinoceros’s skin fitted himquite tight. There were no wrinkles in it anywhere. He looked exactlylike 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 willhave any manners. He said, ‘How!’ and the Parsee left that cake andclimbed to the top of a palm tree with nothing on but his hat, fromwhich the rays of the sun were always reflected in more-than-orientalsplendour. And the Rhinoceros upset the oil-stove with his nose, andthe cake rolled on the sand, and he spiked that cake on the horn of hisnose, and he ate it, and he went away, waving his tail, to the desolateand Exclusively Uninhabited Interior which abuts on the islands ofMazanderan, Socotra, and Promontories of the Larger Equinox. Then theParsee came down from his palm-tree and put the stove on its legs andrecited the following Sloka, which, as you have not heard, I will nowproceed 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, andeverybody took off all the clothes they had. The Parsee took off hishat; but the Rhinoceros took off his skin and carried it over hisshoulder as he came down to the beach to bathe. In those days itbuttoned underneath with three buttons and looked like a waterproof. Hesaid nothing whatever about the Parsee’s cake, because he had eatenit 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.Presently the Parsee came by and found the skin, and he smiled one smilethat ran all round his face two times. Then he danced three times roundthe skin and rubbed his hands. Then he went to his camp and filled hishat with cake-crumbs, for the Parsee never ate anything but cake, andnever swept out his camp. He took that skin, and he shook that skin, andhe 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 couldpossibly hold. Then he climbed to the top of his palm-tree and waitedfor the Rhinoceros to come out of the water and put it on.And the Rhinoceros did. He buttoned it up with the three buttons, andit tickled like cake crumbs in bed. Then he wanted to scratch, but thatmade it worse; and then he lay down on the sands and rolled and rolledand rolled, and every time he rolled the cake crumbs tickled him worseand worse and worse. Then he ran to the palm-tree and rubbed and rubbedand rubbed himself against it. He rubbed so much and so hard that herubbed his skin into a great fold over his shoulders, and another foldunderneath, where the buttons used to be (but he rubbed the buttonsoff), and he rubbed some more folds over his legs. And it spoiled histemper, 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 angryindeed and horribly scratchy; and from that day to this every rhinoceroshas great folds in his skin and a very bad temper, all on account of thecake-crumbs inside.But the Parsee came down from his palm-tree, wearing his hat, from whichthe 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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Profile Image for James Schempp

Unlistenable

Monotone narrator without cadence or inflection and literally more add time than content. Don’t bother.

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