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Updated: May 17, 2025
"How would you like to hear one about the hot, sandy desert?" asked Humpo, the camel. "That would be fine!" cried Umboo. "Tell us your story, Humpo!" "I will," promised the camel. It will be called "Humpo, the Camel." The elephants swayed to and fro, their leg-chains clanking in the tent. The monkeys chattered among themselves. Snarlie, the big, striped tiger yawned and stretched.
And now we come to Umboo. "The first thing I remember," began the elephant, "was when I was a little baby in the jungle." "Were you very little?" asked Snarlie the tiger. "Well, I have heard my mother say I weighed about two hundred pounds the first day I came into the world," answered Umboo. "So, though I was little for an elephant, I would have made a very big monkey, I suppose.
"And did she let you?" asked Snarlie, the tiger, as the elephant stopped in the telling his story long enough to take a bite of hay. "Did she let you, Umboo?"
"I thought we were to listen to Umboo's story." "That's right we were," said Snarlie. "I'm sorry I talked so much. But I was telling Chako about the books we are in, Woo-Uff." "Yes, books are all well enough," said the lion, "but give me a good piece of meat. Now go on, Umboo. What was it Chako asked?"
"And it reminded me also," spoke Snarlie. "Well do I recall how little Princess Toto rode on the back of a great elephant like yourself, Umboo, and how it was then I first saw her. Afterward I went to live with her, and there was a palace, with a fountain in it where the water sparkled in the sun." "What's a palace?" asked Chako, the monkey. "Is it something good to eat, like a cocoanut?"
"I will!" promised the elephant. And then, as the afternoon show was over, and it was not yet time for the night one to begin, the animals had a little quiet time to themselves. And, as they had done once before, they got ready to listen to a story. In the book before this I have written for you the story of Woo-Uff, the lion. And before that I gave you the story of Snarlie, the tiger.
"Indeed it is not," said Snarlie. "A palace is a big house, like this circus tent, only it is made of stone. Princess Toto and I lived there, but now I live in a circus, and I shall never see Toto again! I liked her very much." "I like children, too," said Woo-Uff, the lion, in his deep, rumbly voice.
"Did you go down?" asked Snarlie, laughing so that his sharp, white teeth showed in his red mouth. "Did I go down? I should say I did!" cried Umboo. "I went down so fast I almost turned over in a somersault, the way the trick dogs do in our circus. And, at first, I was scared. "But the hill of dirt was smooth, without any big stones in it, and away I slid.
"Once I was caught in a trap, but it was made of a net, with ropes of bark. It was then that Gur, the kind boy, gave me a drink of water." "And I was in a trap also," spoke Snarlie, the striped tiger. "I fell into a deep pit. It was almost like your trap, Umboo, except that the sides were of dirt, and the pit was very deep. I could not jump out.
"Well, all right, I will," said the big elephant, as he swung to and fro; because elephants are very seldom still, but always moving as they stand. And they sleep standing up did you know that? "I'll tell you a story about my jungle," went on Umboo. "But perhaps you will not like it as well as you did the story Snarlie the tiger told you."
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