Hilaire Belloc: The Llama

The Llama is a woolly sort of hairy fleecy goat,
With an indolent expression and an undulating throat
    Like an unsuccessful literary man.
And I know the place he lives in (or at least - I think I do)
It is Ecuador, Brazil or Chile - possibly Peru;
    You must find it in the Atlas if you can.
The Llama of the Pampasses you never should confound
(In spite of a deceptive similarity of sound)
    With the Lama who is Lord of Turkestan.
For the former is a beautiful and valuable beast,
But the latter is not loveable nor useful in the least;
And the ruminant is preferable surely to the Priest
Who battens on the woful superstitions of the East,
    The Mongol of the Monastery of Shan.


Hmmm. Belloc had the necessary tum-de-TUM fluency and probably thought (or wanted his readers to think) that he was gently satirising complacent Little British ignorance. But it's 1897, and the jokiness is the kind of middlebrow satire that's deeply complicit with what it's satirising. Has anything changed since then? (It's two days until the UK's EU referendum.)