Just So Stories for Little Children / Просто сказки. Книга для чтения на английском языке

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Then said Baviaan, �The aboriginal Fauna has joined the aboriginal Flora because it was high time for a change[72 - it was high time for a change – давно пришла пора перемен]; 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 spotted and spotted, 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[75 - sunshine – зд. солнечный свет]. I can smell Zebra, and I can hear Zebra, but I can’t see Zebra.’

This is Wise Baviaan, the dog-headed Baboon, who is Quite the Wisest Animal in All South Africa.

I have drawn him from 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 Hieroglyphic and Cuneiformic and Bengalic and Burmic and Herbraic[73 - Coptic – коптский язык; Hieroglyphic – иерогли-фический язык; Cuneiform(ic) – клинообразный знак (в ассирийских надписях); Bengalic – бенгальский язык; Burmic – бирманский язык; Herbraic – древ-нееврейский язык], all because he is so wise.

He is not beautiful, but he is very wise, and I should like[74 - I should like – мне бы хотелось] to paint him with paint-box colours, but I am not allowed. The umbrella-ish thing about his head is his Conventional Mane.

�Wait a bit’, said the Ethiopian. �It’s a long time since we’ve hunted[76 - to hunt smb – охотиться на кого-то, преследовать кого-то] ’em[77 - ’em = them]. Perhaps we’ve forgotten what they were like.