...the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake... 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... will permanently vitiate your future career.'
This is the way all Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakes always talk.
So he pulled, and the Elephant's Child pulled, and the Crocodile pulled...
Illustration for The Elephant's Child, in Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, published in a limited edition of 1,000 copies by The Folio Society, 2012.
Watercolour on Saunders Waterford hot pressed; 255 x 180mm.
Details:
This illustration also accompanied an article by Michael Morpurgo in the Saturday Guardian on 5th January, 2013 (below).
Sad to say, but the image of the elephant's battle is very close to a real incident.
[link]
Poor Baby.