The Elephant's Child having his nose pulled. Illustration for Rudyard Kipling's "The Elephant's Child" in Just So Stories, p. 63. 1926. 3 1/2 x 3 9/16 inches.
Kipling's Commentary
THIS is the Elephant's Child having his nose pulled by the Crocodile. He is much surprised and astonished and hurt, and he is talking through his, nose and saying, 'Led go! You are hurtig be!' He is pulling very hard, and so is the Crocodile; but the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake is hurrying through the water to help the Elephant's Child. All that black stuff is the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River (but I am not allowed to paint these pictures), and the bottly-tree with the twisty roots and the eight leaves is one of the fever-trees that grow there.
Underneath the truly picture are shadows of African animals walking into an African ark. There are two lions, two ostriches, two oxen, two camels, two sheep, and two other things that look like rats, but I think they are rock- rabbits. They don't mean anything. I put them in because I thought they looked pretty. They would look very fine if I were allowed to paint them. [p. 62]
Scanned image and text by George P. Landow [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one. ]
Bibliography
Kipling, Rudyard. Just So Stories for Little Children. Illustrated by the Author. London: Macmillan, 1926.
Last modified 20 February 2005