Rudyard Kipling - Poems and Full Works

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 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 stove because he
was allowed to cook on the 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 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.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.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!

ARMY HEADQUARTERS   Old is the song that I sing—
      Old as my unpaid bills—
   Old as the chicken that kitmutgars bring
   Men at dak-bungalows—old as the Hills.   Ahasuerus Jenkins of the “Operatic Own”
    Was dowered with a tenor voice of super-Santley tone.   His views on equitation were, perhaps, a trifle queer;
   He had no seat worth mentioning, but oh! he had an ear.   He clubbed his wretched company a dozen times a day,
   He used to quit his charger in a parabolic way,
   His method of saluting was the joy of all beholders,
   But Ahasuerus Jenkins had a head upon his shoulders.   He took two months to Simla when the year was at the spring,
   And underneath the deodars eternally did sing.   He warbled like a bulbul, but particularly at
   Cornelia Agrippina who was musical and fat.   She controlled a humble husband, who, in turn, controlled a Dept.,
   Where Cornelia Agrippina's human singing-birds were kept
   From April to October on a plump retaining fee,
   Supplied, of course, per mensem, by the Indian Treasury.   Cornelia used to sing with him, and Jenkins used to play;
   He praised unblushingly her notes, for he was false as they:
   So when the winds of April turned the budding roses brown,
   Cornelia told her husband: “Tom, you mustn't send him down.”   They haled him from his regiment which didn't much regret him;
   They found for him an office-stool, and on that stool they set him,
   To play with maps and catalogues three idle hours a day,
   And draw his plump retaining fee—which means his double pay.   Now, ever after dinner, when the coffeecups are brought,
   Ahasuerus waileth o'er the grand pianoforte;
   And, thanks to fair Cornelia, his fame hath waxen great,
   And Ahasuerus Jenkins is a power in the State.

GENERAL SUMMARY We are very slightly changed From the semi-apes who ranged India's prehistoric clay; Whoso drew the longest bow, Ran his brother down, you know, As we run men down today. “Dowb,” the first of all his race, Met the Mammoth face to face On the lake or in the cave, Stole the steadiest canoe, Ate the quarry others slew, Died—and took the finest grave. When they scratched the reindeer-bone Someone made the sketch his own, Filched it from the artist—then, Even in those early days, Won a simple Viceroy's praise Through the toil of other men. Ere they hewed the Sphinx's visage Favoritism governed kissage, Even as it does in this age. Who shall doubt the secret hid Under Cheops' pyramid Was that the contractor did Cheops out of several millions? Or that Joseph's sudden rise To Comptroller of Supplies Was a fraud of monstrous size On King Pharoah's swart Civilians? Thus, the artless songs I sing Do not deal with anything New or never said before. As it was in the beginning, Is today official sinning, And shall be forevermore.