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98 pages

English

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The Jungle Book from 1894 is a collection of Rudyard Kipling's stories that give moral lessons through the personification of animals. The most famous of the stories are the three detailing the adventures of Mowgli, the abandoned "man cub" who is raised by wolves in the Indian jungle. Also well-known is the tale of a heroic mongoose Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, and the story of a young elephant handler in Toomai of the Elephants. Due to its moral flavor, The Jungle Book was used by the junior section of the Scouting movement, the Cub Scouts.

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Children's

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 janvier 2009
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781877527296
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

THE JUNGLE BOOK
* * *
RUDYARD KIPLING

*

The Jungle Book First published in 1894.
ISBN 978-1-877527-29-6
© 2008 THE FLOATING PRESS.
While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike.
Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Mowgli's Brothers Hunting-Song of the Seeonee Pack Kaa's Hunting Road-Song of the Bandar-Log "Tiger! Tiger!" Mowgli's Song The White Seal Lukannon "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" Darzee's Chant Toomai of the Elephants Shiv and the Grasshopper Her Majesty's Servants Parade Song of the Camp Animals
Mowgli's Brothers
*
Now Rann the Kite brings home the night That Mang the Bat sets free— The herds are shut in byre and hut For loosed till dawn are we. This is the hour of pride and power, Talon and tush and claw. Oh, hear the call!—Good hunting all That keep the Jungle Law! Night-Song in the Jungle
It was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills whenFather Wolf woke up from his day's rest, scratched himself, yawned, andspread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feelingin their tips. Mother Wolf lay with her big gray nose dropped across herfour tumbling, squealing cubs, and the moon shone into the mouth of thecave where they all lived. "Augrh!" said Father Wolf. "It is time tohunt again." He was going to spring down hill when a little shadow witha bushy tail crossed the threshold and whined: "Good luck go with you, OChief of the Wolves. And good luck and strong white teeth go with noblechildren that they may never forget the hungry in this world."
It was the jackal—Tabaqui, the Dish-licker—and the wolves of Indiadespise Tabaqui because he runs about making mischief, and tellingtales, and eating rags and pieces of leather from the villagerubbish-heaps. But they are afraid of him too, because Tabaqui, morethan anyone else in the jungle, is apt to go mad, and then he forgetsthat he was ever afraid of anyone, and runs through the forest bitingeverything in his way. Even the tiger runs and hides when little Tabaquigoes mad, for madness is the most disgraceful thing that can overtakea wild creature. We call it hydrophobia, but they call it dewanee—themadness—and run.
"Enter, then, and look," said Father Wolf stiffly, "but there is no foodhere."
"For a wolf, no," said Tabaqui, "but for so mean a person as myself adry bone is a good feast. Who are we, the Gidur-log (the jackal people) ,to pick and choose?" He scuttled to the back of the cave, where hefound the bone of a buck with some meat on it, and sat cracking the endmerrily.
"All thanks for this good meal," he said, licking his lips. "Howbeautiful are the noble children! How large are their eyes! And so youngtoo! Indeed, indeed, I might have remembered that the children of kingsare men from the beginning."
Now, Tabaqui knew as well as anyone else that there is nothing sounlucky as to compliment children to their faces. It pleased him to seeMother and Father Wolf look uncomfortable.
Tabaqui sat still, rejoicing in the mischief that he had made, and thenhe said spitefully:
"Shere Khan, the Big One, has shifted his hunting grounds. He will huntamong these hills for the next moon, so he has told me."
Shere Khan was the tiger who lived near the Waingunga River, twentymiles away.
"He has no right!" Father Wolf began angrily—"By the Law of the Junglehe has no right to change his quarters without due warning. He willfrighten every head of game within ten miles, and I—I have to kill fortwo, these days."
"His mother did not call him Lungri (the Lame One) for nothing," saidMother Wolf quietly. "He has been lame in one foot from his birth. Thatis why he has only killed cattle. Now the villagers of the Waingunga areangry with him, and he has come here to make our villagers angry.They will scour the jungle for him when he is far away, and we and ourchildren must run when the grass is set alight. Indeed, we are verygrateful to Shere Khan!"
"Shall I tell him of your gratitude?" said Tabaqui.
"Out!" snapped Father Wolf. "Out and hunt with thy master. Thou hastdone harm enough for one night."
"I go," said Tabaqui quietly. "Ye can hear Shere Khan below in thethickets. I might have saved myself the message."
Father Wolf listened, and below in the valley that ran down to a littleriver he heard the dry, angry, snarly, singsong whine of a tiger who hascaught nothing and does not care if all the jungle knows it.
"The fool!" said Father Wolf. "To begin a night's work with that noise!Does he think that our buck are like his fat Waingunga bullocks?"
"H'sh. It is neither bullock nor buck he hunts to-night," said MotherWolf. "It is Man."
The whine had changed to a sort of humming purr that seemed to comefrom every quarter of the compass. It was the noise that bewilderswoodcutters and gypsies sleeping in the open, and makes them runsometimes into the very mouth of the tiger.
"Man!" said Father Wolf, showing all his white teeth. "Faugh! Are therenot enough beetles and frogs in the tanks that he must eat Man, and onour ground too!"
The Law of the Jungle, which never orders anything without a reason,forbids every beast to eat Man except when he is killing to show hischildren how to kill, and then he must hunt outside the hunting groundsof his pack or tribe. The real reason for this is that man-killingmeans, sooner or later, the arrival of white men on elephants, withguns, and hundreds of brown men with gongs and rockets and torches.Then everybody in the jungle suffers. The reason the beasts give amongthemselves is that Man is the weakest and most defenseless of all livingthings, and it is unsportsmanlike to touch him. They say too—and it istrue—that man-eaters become mangy, and lose their teeth.
The purr grew louder, and ended in the full-throated "Aaarh!" of thetiger's charge.
Then there was a howl—an untigerish howl—from Shere Khan. "He hasmissed," said Mother Wolf. "What is it?"
Father Wolf ran out a few paces and heard Shere Khan muttering andmumbling savagely as he tumbled about in the scrub.
"The fool has had no more sense than to jump at a woodcutter's campfire,and has burned his feet," said Father Wolf with a grunt. "Tabaqui iswith him."
"Something is coming uphill," said Mother Wolf, twitching one ear. "Getready."
The bushes rustled a little in the thicket, and Father Wolf droppedwith his haunches under him, ready for his leap. Then, if you had beenwatching, you would have seen the most wonderful thing in the world—thewolf checked in mid-spring. He made his bound before he saw what it washe was jumping at, and then he tried to stop himself. The result wasthat he shot up straight into the air for four or five feet, landingalmost where he left ground.
"Man!" he snapped. "A man's cub. Look!"
Directly in front of him, holding on by a low branch, stood a nakedbrown baby who could just walk—as soft and as dimpled a little atomas ever came to a wolf's cave at night. He looked up into Father Wolf'sface, and laughed.
"Is that a man's cub?" said Mother Wolf. "I have never seen one. Bringit here."
A Wolf accustomed to moving his own cubs can, if necessary, mouth an eggwithout breaking it, and though Father Wolf's jaws closed right on thechild's back not a tooth even scratched the skin as he laid it downamong the cubs.
"How little! How naked, and—how bold!" said Mother Wolf softly. Thebaby was pushing his way between the cubs to get close to the warm hide."Ahai! He is taking his meal with the others. And so this is a man'scub. Now, was there ever a wolf that could boast of a man's cub amongher children?"
"I have heard now and again of such a thing, but never in our Pack or inmy time," said Father Wolf. "He is altogether without hair, and Icould kill him with a touch of my foot. But see, he looks up and is notafraid."
The moonlight was blocked out of the mouth of the cave, for Shere Khan'sgreat square head and shoulders were thrust into the entrance. Tabaqui,behind him, was squeaking: "My lord, my lord, it went in here!"
"Shere Khan does us great honor," said Father Wolf, but his eyes werevery angry. "What does Shere Khan need?"
"My quarry. A man's cub went this way," said Shere Khan. "Its parentshave run off. Give it to me."
Shere Khan had jumped at a woodcutter's campfire, as Father Wolf hadsaid, and was furious from the pain of his burned feet. But Father Wolfknew that the mouth of the cave was too narrow for a tiger to come inby. Even where he was, Shere Khan's shoulders and forepaws were crampedfor want of room, as a man's would be if he tried to fight in a barrel.
"The Wolves are a free people," said Father Wolf. "They take orders fromthe Head of the Pack, and not from any striped cattle-killer. The man'scub is ours—to kill if we choose."
"Ye choose and ye do not choose! What talk is this of choosing? By thebull that I killed, am I to stand nosing into your dog's den for my fairdues? It is I, Shere Khan, who speak!"
The tiger's roar filled the cave with thunder. Mother Wolf shook herselfclear of the cubs and sprang forward, her eyes, like two green moons inthe darkness, facing the blazing eyes of Shere Khan.
"And it is I, Raksha (The Demon) , who answers. The man's cub is mine,Lungri—mine to me! He shall not be killed. He shall live to run withthe Pack and to hunt with the Pack; and in the end, look you, hunter oflittle naked cubs—frog-eater—fish-killer—he shall hunt thee! Now gethence, or by the Sambhur that I killed (I eat no starved cattle), backthou goest to thy mother, burned beast of the jungle, lamer than everthou camest into the world! Go!"
Father