The Great Grey-Green, Greasy Limpopo River - #OurHeritage
Sandy Grant | Wednesday May 14, 2014 14:12
One of them, very obviously, comes with The Elephant Child, one of Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories (1902) written for children, which gave us the catchy alliteration which is known worldwide but which is yet to be scooped up and exploited here. So I provide a concertinaed sample.
‘In the High and Far-Off Times, the Elephant, O Best Beloved, had no trunk. He had only a blackish, bulgy nose, as big as a boot that he could wriggle about from side to side; but he couldn’t pick up things with it. But there was one Elephant-a new Elephant-an Elephant’s Child-who was full of ‘satiable curtiosity. Where he asked can I see a crocodile?
Then the Kolokolo Bird said, with a mournful cry, Go to the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, and find out. That very next morning, this satiable Elephant’s Child said to all his dear families, goodbye, I am going to the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees.
So he went from Graham’s Town to Kimberley, and from Kimberley to Khama’s Country, and from Khama’s Country he went until at last he came to the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees. Now you must know and understand, O Best Beloved, that until that very week, and day, and hour, and minute, this satiable Elephant’s Child had never seen a Crocodile, and did not know one until he trod on what he thought was a log of wood at the very edge of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees. Come hither, Little One, said the Crocodile, for I am the Crocodile, and he wept crocodile-tears to show it was quite true, and I’ll whisper.
Then the Elephant’s Child put his head down close to the Crocodile’s musky, tusky mouth, and the Crocodile caught him by his little nose, which up to that very week, day, hour, and minute, had been no bigger than a boot, though much more useful.
Then the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake scuffled down from the bank and said, My young friend, if you do not now, immediately and instantly, pull as hard as ever you can, it is my opinion that your acquaintance in the large-pattern leather ulster’ (and by this he meant the Crocodile) will jerk you into yonder limpid stream before you can say Jack Robinson.
Then the Elephant’s Child sat back on his little haunches, and pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and his nose began to stretch.
And the Crocodile floundered into the water, making it all creamy with great sweeps of his tail, and he pulled, and pulled, and pulled.
And the Elephant’s Child’s nose kept on stretching; and the Elephant’s Child spread all his little four legs and pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and his nose kept on stretching; and the Crocodile thrashed his tail like an oar, and he pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and at each pull the Elephant’s Child’s nose grew longer and longer.
Then the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake came down from the bank, and knotted himself in a double-clove-hitch round the Elephant’s Child’s hind legs, and said, Rash and inexperienced traveller, we will now seriously devote ourselves to a little high tension, because if we do not, it is my impression that yonder self-propelling man-of-war with the armour-plated upper deck (and by this, O Best Beloved, he meant the Crocodile), ‘will permanently vitiate your future career.
So he pulled, and the Elephant’s Child pulled, and the Crocodile pulled; but the Elephant’s Child and the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake pulled hardest; and at last the Crocodile let go of the Elephant’s Child’s nose with a plop that you could hear all up and down the Limpopo. Then the Elephant’s Child sat down most hard and sudden; but first he was careful to say ‘Thank you’ to the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake; and next he was kind to his poor pulled nose, and wrapped it all up in cool banana leaves, and hung it in the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo to cool. ‘What are you doing that for?’ said the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake. ‘’Scuse me,’ said the Elephant’s Child, ‘but my nose is badly out of shape, and I am waiting for it to shrink.’ Then you will have to wait a long time, said the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake.
The Elephant’s Child sat there for three days waiting for his nose to shrink. But it never grew any shorter. For, O Best Beloved, you will see and understand that the Crocodile had pulled it out into a really truly trunk same as all Elephants have today.