The Law Of The Jungle

"But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee;
and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee:
Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee:
and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee."
Job 12:7-8

"What is the Law of the Jungle? Strike first and then give tongue."

"The Law of the Jungle, which never orders anything without a reason . . .

"The others they hate thee because their eyes cannot meet thine; because thou art wise; because thou hast pulled out thorns from their feet--because thou art a man."
~Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, Mowgli's Brothers~

"None of the Jungle People like being disturbed."
~Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, Kaa's Hunting~


"In the jungle, life and food depend on keeping your temper."
~Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, Tiger! Tiger!~

"His spots are the joy of the Leopard: his horns are the Buffalo's pride-
Be clean, for the strength of the hunter is known by the gloss of his hide."

"'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."
~Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, Maxims of Baloo~

One of our favorite books is the Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling is a famous British author and poet. Among some of his other famous works are Captains Courageous and Gunga Din.

Rudyard Kipling was born on 30 December 1865 in Bombay (in what is now Mumbai), British India. He did not have a happy childhood to which he attributed much of his ability to think and write because of his loneliness and what he described as horror during that time of his life.

Kipling wrote of his mother city, Bombay.

Mother of Cities to me,
For I was born in her gate,
Between the palms and the sea,
Where the world-end steamers wait.

He died on 18 January 1936, two days before George V, at the age of 70. His death had previously been accidentally announced in a magazine, to which Kipling wrote to the editor, "I've just read that I am dead. Don't forget to delete me from your list of subscribers."

When Kipling was young and ready to enter college it was decided that he lacked the academic ability be accepted into Oxford University on a scholarship and his family did not have money to finance him. So, instead Kipling's father got a job for his son in Lahore (which is in Pakistan), as an assistant editor of a small local newspaper, called the Civil & Military Gazette.

Kipling was a lover of the outdoor marvels during his lifetime. He had an eye for detail and the ability to capture and express the moment in words. He described such a moment in a letter he wrote about of fall in Vermont, stating . . .

"A little maple began it, flaming blood-red of a sudden
where he stood against the dark green of a pine-belt.
Next morning there was an answering signal
from the swamp where the sumacs grow.
Three days later, the hill-sides as fast
as the eye could range were afire,
and the roads paved, with crimson and gold.
Then a wet wind blew,
and ruined all the uniforms of that gorgeous army;
and the oaks, who had held themselves in reserve,
buckled on their dull and bronzed cuirasses
and stood it out stiffly to the last blown leaf,
till nothing remained but pencil-shadings of bare boughs,
and one could see into the most private heart of the woods."