all set about with fever-trees, to find out what the
Crocodile has for dinner.' And they all spanked him once more for luck,
though he asked them most politely to stop.

Then he went away, a little warm, but not at all astonished, 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 Ch