KIPLING'S LAST POEM.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 9951, 12 March 1894, Page 2

KIPLING'S LAST POEM.

With reference to Rudyard Kipling's poem on tho death of " the Ahkoond of Swat," there hangs a tale, says the Melbourne Leader. At a club in Boston, Rudyard Kipling and some literary men were holding converse together on the subject of impromptu verses, and six men present agreed to try their hands at "that sort of composition, the subject to be chosen for them by the editor of the Boston Transcrijjt, and the time limited to half an hour. The editor gave " The Ahkoond of Swat," of whose death he said he had just heard by cable, and at the expiration of the half hour Rudyard Kipling was called on for his effusion. Before beginnnig to read, he informed the company that the Ahkoond was not as might have been supposed, the ruler of the Swats, but a sacred elephant, which that potentate employed to trample his enemies to death, adding that he feared his own intimate acquaintance with India had given him an unfair advantage over his competitors — a view in which most of them sorrowfully concurred. One story is good, however, until another is told • aud when five of the poems had been duly read by the authors, the sixth man proceeded to put Mr Kipling right. He, too he said, might claim to know something. He was personally acquainted with " Tho Ahkoond," of Swat, and also with his hiicred elephant, "The Alikooiul," and itaubllus Mr Kipliny had been mitJed by the similarity of title. In this csihe, however, there could, he averred, be no mishike, as, the bat-red elephants always enjoyed a short life— thougJi_ perhaps, .a merry one. In trampling on the bodies they invariably contracted blood poisoning of the feet, and usually died off at tho rate of about eight a year, so that the demise of one of them would certainly not be telegraphed half round the world. Moreover, the Ahkoond had himself spoken to him concerning this heavy mortality, land had taken his advice about providing the beasts with some kind of shoe to guard against disease. He then read the poem above alluded to which was pronounced to be far and away the best ; and the whole six were published m the 'Transcript. But the editor relates that, in talking the thing over afterwards withKiplingand bisjsuccessf ul competitor, he came to the conclusion that neither of them had ever heard of the Ahkoond or his sacred elephant before.