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HOW THE RHINOCEROS GOT HIS SKIN ONCE 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…

The Devoted Friend. One morning the old Water-rat put his head out of his hole.  He had bright beady eyes and stiff grey whiskers and his tail was like a long bit of black india-rubber.  The little ducks were swimming about in the pond, looking just like a lot of yellow canaries, and their mother,…

THE GOLDEN BIRD A certain king had a beautiful garden, and in the garden stood a tree which bore golden apples. These apples were always counted, and about the time when they began to grow ripe it was found that every night one of them was gone. The king became very angry at this, and…

FERDINANDO EBOLI During this quiet time of peace we are fast forgetting the exciting and astonishing events of the Napoleonic wars; and the very names of Europe’s conquerors are becoming antiquated to the ears of our children. Those were more romantic days than these; for the revulsions occasioned by revolution or invasion were full of romance;…

THE SISTERS OF ALBANO. “And near Albano’s scarce divided waves Shine from a sister valley;—and afar The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves The Latian coast where sprang the Epic war, ‘Arms and the Man,’ whose re-ascending star Rose o’er an empire; but beneath thy right Tully reposed from Rome; and where yon bar…

The Selfish Giant. Every afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used to go and play in the Giant’s garden. It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass.  Here and there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there were twelve peach-trees that in the spring-time broke out into…

HOW THE CAMEL GOT HIS HUMP HOW this is the next tale, and it tells how the Camel got his big hump. In the beginning of years, when the world was so new and all, and the Animals were just beginning to work for Man, there was a Camel, and he lived in the middle…

HOW THE LEOPARD GOT HIS SPOTS ON the days when everybody started fair, Best Beloved, the Leopard lived in a place called the High Veldt. ‘Member it wasn’t the Low Veldt, or the Bush Veldt, or the Sour Veldt, but the ‘sclusively bare, hot, shiny High Veldt, where there was sand and sandy-coloured rock and…