After a long time (долгое время спустя) — things lived for ever so long in those days (в те дни существа жили всегда так долго) — they learned to avoid anything that looked like a Leopard or an Ethiopian (они научились избегать всего, что походило на Леопарда или Эфиопа); and bit by bit (и мало-помалу;
giraffe [GI'rRf], shadow ['Sxdqu], half [hRf]
After a long time — things lived for ever so long in those days — they learned to avoid anything that looked like a Leopard or an Ethiopian; and bit by bit — the Giraffe began it, because his legs were the longest — they went away from the High Veldt. They scuttled for days and days and days till they came to a great forest, ‘sclusively full of trees and bushes and stripy, speckly, patchy-blatchy shadows, and there they hid: and after another long time, what with standing half in the shade and half out of it, and what with the slippery-slidy shadows of the trees falling on them, the Giraffe grew blotchy, and the Zebra grew stripy, and the Eland and the Koodoo grew darker, with little wavy grey lines on their backs like bark on a tree trunk; and so, though you could hear them and smell them, you could very seldom see them, and then only when you knew precisely where to look.
They had a beautiful time in the ‘sclusively speckly-spickly shadows of the forest (они прекрасно проводили время в ‘сключительно крапчато-рассыпчатых тенях леса), while the Leopard and the Ethiopian ran about over the ‘sclusively greyish-yellowish-reddish High Veldt outside (в то время как Леопард и Эфиоп бегали по ‘сключительно серовато-желтовато-рыжеватому Высокому Вельду), wondering where all their breakfasts and their dinners and their teas had gone (спрашивая себя, куда подевались все их завтраки, и обеды, и ужины). At last they were so hungry (наконец они так проголодались) that they ate rats and beetles and rock-rabbits (что они стали есть крыс, и жуков, и сеноставок[39]), the Leopard and the Ethiopian (Леопард и Эфиоп), and then they had the Big Tummy-ache, both together (а потом у них обоих вместе Сильно разболелись Животики); and then they met Baviaan — the dog-headed, barking Baboon (а потом они встретили Павиана — собакоголового лающего Бабуина), who is Quite the Wisest Animal in All South Africa (который Действительно Наимудрейшее Животное во Всей Южной Африке[40]).
beautiful ['bjHtIful], wonder ['wAndq], animal ['xnImql]