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eating melons, and throwing the rind about, because he could not
pick it up.

He went from Graham's Town to Kimberley, and from Kimberley to
Khama's Country, and from Khama's Country he went east by north,
eating melons all the time, till at last he came to the banks of
the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with
fever-trees, precisely as Kolokolo Bird had said.

Now you must know and understand, O Best Beloved, that till that
very week, and day, and hour, and minute, this 'satiable
Elephant's Child had never seen a Crocodile, and did not know
what one was like. It was all his 'satiable curtiosity.

The first thing that he found was a Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake
curled round a rock.

''Scuse me,' said the Elephant's Child most politely, 'but have
you seen such a thing as a Crocodile in these promiscuous parts?'

'Have I seen a Crocodile?' said the
Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake, in a voice of dretful scorn. 'What
will you ask me next?'

''Scuse me,' said the Elephant's Child, 'but could you kindly
tell me what he has for dinner?'

Then the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake uncoiled himself very
quickly from the rock, and spanked the Elephant's Child with his
scalesome, flailsome tail.

'That is odd,' said the Elephant's Child, 'because my father and
my mother, and my uncle and my aunt, not to mention my other
aunt, the Hippopotamus, and my other uncle, the Baboon, have all
spanked me for my 'satiable curtiosity--and I suppose this is the
same thing.

So he said good-bye very politely to the
Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake, and helped to coil him up on the
rock again, and went on, a little warm, but not at all
astonished, eating melons, and throwing the rind about, because
he could not pick it up, till 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.

But it was really the Crocodile, O Best Beloved, and the
Crocodile winked one eye--like this!

''Scuse me,' said the Elephant's Child most politely, 'but do you
happen to have seen a Crocodile in these promiscuous parts?'

Then the Crocodile winked the other eye, and lifted half his tail
out of the mud; and the Elephant's Child stepped back most
politely, because he did not wish to be spanked again.

'Come hither, Little One,' said the Crocodile. 'Why do you ask
such things?'

''Scuse me,' said the Elephant's Child most politely, 'but my
father has spanked me, my mother has spanked me, not to mention
my tall aunt, the Ostrich, and my tall uncle, the Giraffe, who
can kick ever so hard, as well as my broad aunt, the
Hippopotamus, and my hairy uncle, the Baboon, and including the
Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake, with the scalesome, flailsome
tail, just up the bank, who spanks harder than any of them; and
so, if it's quite all the same to you, I don't want to be spanked

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