Great Khufu was sorely fed up with the tedious entertainments offered at his nightly banquets. Line after line of boring dwarves and monkeys jigged and juggled whimsically but he had seen it all before. Something new was needed, something strange and daring, something different, something - lively.
Great Khufu clapped his hands and summoned his head waiter. “Bring me the head of John the Baptist”, he cried. Lo, and the waiter was sorely troubled, heads being out of season. “How about a dwarf?” the waiter ventured.
“Gadzooks, you cad! I am up to my painted ears in dwarves. I want diversion, dissipation, daring deeds and derring do. I want something original.” He grabbed the waiter by his white jacket. “Something that has never been seen before.”
“Well what about a monkey, then?”
Great Khufu bellowed like a lion. “Do I have to spell it out? Bring me something new. Something special! Something amazing! Something the like of which will draw gasps of wonder from my subjects. Get ye gone and do my bidding.”
Head waiter, deep in thought, strolled out along the Nile delta and looked out across the horizon. Strange and wondrous creatures existed in other lands he knew, his mother was from Italy. In the harbour, a curious ship was bobbing at anchor. Head waiter crept aboard and stowed himself in a sack of grain. He would adventure across the oceans and bring Great Khufu his heart’s desire. Days passed and the heat was stifling. With nowhere suitable to relieve himself, head waiter’s sack of grain became a sack of porridge and when he at last disembarked, he found his legs completely hairless. It was an important discovery. I shall call it depilatory cream, he decided.
Creeping ashore, his legs felt deliciously cool and smooth, though the air he breathed was rank and humid. Above his head, huge trees towered, closing in on him. He felt oppressed and very hungry. An uncivilised place, there were no shops. What was head waiter to eat? He came upon some small children digging by the roadside. After a great deal of time and effort, they unearthed a small rodent. Putting it to one side, they began to dig again. Head waiter was disgusted at this prospective diet but decided it would have to do. He had no money, and nothing to barter with, but he did have one advantage. He was bigger than them.
He moved stealthily forward and reached out his hand. The rodent was almost in his grasp when what looked like a small bush by the side of the road suddenly came to life and devoured it. Shocked, head waiter sat down suddenly amid the screams and wails of the deprived children. The bush shook itself and ran away to hide in the trees.
“Mbwa, mbwa”, shouted the children tearfully, rushing up the street to mother. Hmm, thought head waiter. A mobile bush, now that would be a good thing indeed to give to Great Khufu. He did not have one of those. Head waiter headed into the trees inspecting each bush as he went. In his pocket he carried a sliver of putrid meat. He had not gone far when a bush detached itself from a thicket of young trees and barred his way.
Head waiter bent down confidentially and introduced himself Slight pressure on his pocket indicated that the bush was searching for the meat. Head waiter held the meat out between his fingers. Snatch! went the bush, almost severing his hand in its haste for food. Head waiter took a closer look. The gloom of the forest did not allow for accurate identification but there was more to this bush than met the eye. Head waiter grabbed it and clung on tight, running backwards through the trees and onto a sunlit path.
The Eighth Wonder of the World! It was not a bush, but a bush thing. It wagged its tail happily enjoying the joke. Head waiter circled it in wonder, gazing at it from every angle. It was a dog, as clever as it was beautiful, as camouflaged as it was strikingly different, and as stripey as a pair of pyjamas.
“O dog”, head waiter bowed. “How came you so different?”
“My mother was tethered to a bush”, it replied, “And some say my father was a passing jackal.”
“But jackals do not carry the brindle gene”, head waiter admonished.
“No”, conceded the bush dog, “But as the seasons turn, so the leaves of the bush change colour. It is the natural way of things and only right and proper. This is my habitat, I merely blend with my surroundings in the same way that you, in your white jacket, blend naturally with yours.
At this, head waiter remembered his neglected banqueting hall. “May I extend an invitation?” he asked. “You will have fame beyond your wildest dreams! You will be marvelled at and wondered at and argued over bitterly. Men will rave and women spit with envy. Passions will be roused where nothing was thought to stir and you will have your picture on the front pages of the dog press.” Head waiter was eloquent in his persuasion and bush dog consented to travel to the land of the Great Khufu.
The palace was all agog at head waiter’s return with the Original Sin. And sinful it was; artful, creative, and importantly, fast. Head waiter was pleased. “You may as well try and catch the wind”, he said complacently to head chef, as yet another sirloin rushed out of the kitchen in the possession of the bush thing.
Great Khufu was thoughtful. “Hmmm”, he said, stroking his pointless beard, “It is not quite a bush, yet not quite a dog, and certainly no common cur ... What shall we call it?”
“How about Basenji?” suggested head waiter in a moment of inspiration.
Great Khufu frowned in concentration. “Why Basenji?” he said at last.
Head waiter was embarrassed. He could have said entreés, hors d’oeuvres, or consommé, but instead had ventured a word in a foreign tongue.
“Don’t you like it?” he cried in alarm.
“No, no, on the contrary”, said Great Khufu, “It suits him fine: neither one thing nor the other; outlandish, different, defies description - it’ll do. And now we have him, what shall we do with him?”
On this, head waiter was more knowledgeable. “It’s not what we will do with him, I fear - but what he will decide to do for himself.”
“But we can’t have Basenjis running about all over and doing as they please!” roared Great Khufu, feeling somewhat famished. Unusually, there was not much food left in the kitchen.
“There will come a day”, intoned head waiter who had fallen into a psychic trance, “When all shall listen to the word of one woman. Her hair shall be as grey as iron, and her war-cry shall be Walkies!”
“What the blue blazes are you talking about now?” yelled Great Khufu.
“Choke chains shall be employed to no avail, whistles shall be blown, and only the truly dense shall learn to sit and stay.”
Great Khufu had little interest in predictions that did not concern him.
“Yet, you sir”, continued head waiter, “shall be revered for all time, and such will be your importance, that even the Basenjis engraved upon your tomb will excite interest and admiration from weird and fanciful amateur Egyptologists 3,000 years hence.”
Great Khufu’s interest was aroused at last. “Really? How many?”
It was mid-day, and sunlight streamed into the huge chamber in a glorious path across the stone floor.
“Look!” said head waiter. “It is a sign.”
At these words, the Basenji came rushing into the chamber, stood in the centre of the light, and was ever after revered as having supernatural understanding. Only head waiter knew that whenever the word “Look!” is uttered, all Basenjis come running.
Afghans come running at “Hey, look!” Thus, it takes them two words to understand what Basenjis comprehend in one. *
