The Jungle Book

Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!

This is the way of the Monkey-kind!

We be of one blood, ye and I.

‘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.

It is the hardest thing in the world to frighten a mongoose, because he is eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity. The motto of all the mongoose family is “Run and find out,” and Rikki-tikki was a true mongoose.

If you read the old books of natural history, you will find they say that when the mongoose fights the snake and happens to get bitten, he runs off and eats some herb that cures him. That is not true. The victory is only a matter of quickness of eye and quickness of foot—snake's blow against mongoose's jump—and as no eye can follow the motion of a snake's head when it strikes, this makes things much more wonderful than any magic herb.