If ye find that the Bullock can toss you, or the heavy-browed Sambhur can gore;
Ye need not stop work to inform us: we knew it ten seasons before.
Oppress not the cubs of the stranger, but hail them as Sister and Brother,
For though they are little and fubsy, it may be the Bear is their mother.
There is none like to me! says the Cub in the pride of his earliest kill;
But the jungle is large and the Cub he is small. Let him think and be still.
_Maxims of Baloo_
All that is told here happened some time before Mowgli was turned out of
the Seeonee Wolf Pack, or revenged himself on Shere Khan the tiger. It
was in the days when Baloo was teaching him the Law of the Jungle. The
big, serious, old brown bear was delighted to have so quick a pupil,
for the young wolves will only learn as much of the Law of the Jungle
as applies to their own pack and tribe, and run away as soon as they can
repeat the Hunting Verse-- Feet that make no noise; eyes that can see in
the dark; ears that can hear the winds in their lairs, and sharp white
teeth, all these things are the marks of our brothers except Tabaqui the
Jackal and the Hyaena whom we hate. But Mowgli, as a man-cub, had to
learn a great deal more than this. Sometimes Bagheera the Black Panther
would come lounging through the jungle to see how his pet was getting
on, and would purr with his head against a tree while Mowgli recited the
day s lesson to Baloo. The boy could climb almost as well as he could
swim, and swim almost as well as he could run. So Baloo, the Teacher of
the Law, taught him the Wood and Water Laws: how to tell a rotten branch
from a sound one; how to speak politely to the wild bees when he came
upon a hive of them fifty feet above ground; what to say to Mang the
Bat when he disturbed him in the branches at midday; and how to warn the
water-snakes in the pools before he splashed down among them. None of
the Jungle People like being disturbed, and all are very ready to fly at
an intruder. Then, too, Mowgli was taught the Strangers Hunting Call,
which must be repeated aloud till it is answered, whenever one of the
Jungle-People hunts outside his own grounds. It means, translated, Give
me leave to hunt here because I am hungry. And the answer is, Hunt
then for food, but not for pleasure.
All this will show you how much Mowgli had to learn by heart, and he
grew very tired of saying the same thing over a hundred times. But, as
Baloo said to Bagheera, one day when Mowgli had been cuffed and run off
in a temper, A man s cub is a man s cub, and he must learn all the Law
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