PAGE
“Zip!--_The spring was made_” 5
“_By smelling he could tell if they were safe to eat_” 8
“_The Doctor had brought a compass_” 10
“_Jumping was extraordinarily easy_” 12
“_It was different from any tree I have ever seen_” 14
“_The doctor kept glancing up uneasily_” 16
“_Polynesia soared into the air_” 19
“_I remember Chee-Chee trickling something cool between my lips_” 20
“_Some of the fruits were as big as a trunk_” 22
“_‘I climbed a tree’_” 24
“_We approached the bluff on whose brow the vegetation flourished_” 27
_The Umbrella Tree_ 28
“_‘Yes,’ said she, ‘I was awake several times’_” 30
“_‘You bet they were not!’ grunted Polynesia_” 31
“_We used a long pole to punt with_” 37
“_‘What do you think, Doctor?’ he stammered_” 40
“_An enormous footprint_” 42
“_There was more movement in the limbs of the trees_” 44
“_It was a sort of basin_” 47
“_Spellbound we gazed up at them_” 50
“_For quite a long while he sat watching certain shrubs_” 51
“_Seeing a giant shadow disappear into the gloom_” 55
“_He seemed to have brought everything he could need_” 57
“_The faithful monkey would come to us every three hours with his 60
strange vegetables_”
“_It was natural to spring a step that measured six or seven feet_” 62
“_We rigged up weather-vanes_” 63
“_Mostly they were on bare knolls_” 66
“_‘You mean you think it was he who sent the signals?’_” 68
“_‘I don’t know, Stubbins,’ said he, frowning_” 70
“_We always took care to leave landmarks behind us_” 73
“_Certainly the plant life became more elaborate and lively_” 75
“_The flowers would be about eighteen inches across_” 77
“_Chee-Chee just fainted away at the first sample_” 80
“_‘Are you ready, Stubbins?’_” 82
“_He struck a light_” 84
“_He passed his hand all around it_” 87
“_He held them before the lilies_” 89
“_These we rigged up on sticks_” 91
“_‘Tommy, you seem to be getting enormously tall’_” 94
“_His height had increased some three inches_” 96
“_‘We look like a family of Robinson Crusoes’_” 98
“_‘Let me think,’ said Chee-Chee_” 101
“_Leaning back munching a piece of yellow yam_” 103
“_A terrible explosion followed_” 106
“_It was a rocky gulch_” 109
“_There was no doubt that they were on the watch_” 112
“_Proceeded with his conversation with the vines_” 113
“_A species of big lizard overran the Moon_” 115
“_where the globe of the Earth glowed dimly_” 118
“_Every single seed was carefully dug up by long-billed birds_” 121
“_Still more birds left the concealment of the creepers_” 123
“_With a very serious look on her old face_” 126
“_Others were unbelievably large_” 128
“It was human!” 131
“_‘Look!--the right wrist--look!’_” 133
“_‘Stubbins!--I say, Stubbins!’_” 137
“_‘Very poor hospitality, I call it’_” 139
“_I watched Chee-Chee’s head nodding sleepily_” 141
“_‘I lived on roots’_” 147
“_‘The piece fell into one of our lakes’_” 149
“_The bird was introduced to the Doctor_” 152
“_‘I had the birds bring me reports of your movements’_” 155
“_‘I set the pile off with a live ember’_” 157
“_‘I could whistle short conversations’_” 161
“_This history had been carved in pictures on the face of a rock_” 163
“_‘But_ grasshoppers!’” 165
“_Grasshoppers with crude bandages on their gawky joints_” 168
“_Then he lectured his big friend_” 170
“_‘Watch out, Tommy!’_” 172
“_‘Don’t worry, Tommy, he’ll come back’_” 185
THE FIRST CHAPTER
We Land Upon a New World
In writing the story of our adventures in the Moon I, Thomas Stubbins,
secretary to John Dolittle, M.D. (and son of Jacob Stubbins, the cobbler
of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh), find myself greatly puzzled. It is not an
easy task, remembering day by day and hour by hour those crowded and
exciting weeks. It is true I made many notes for the Doctor, books full
of them. But that information was nearly all of a highly scientific
kind. And I feel that I should tell the story here not for the scientist
so much as for the general reader. And it is in that I am perplexed.
For the story could be told in many ways. People are so different in
what they want to know about a voyage. I had thought at one time Jip
could help me; and after reading him some chapters as I had first set
them down I asked for his opinion. I discovered he was mostly interested
in whether we had seen any rats in the Moon. I found I could not tell
him. I didn’t remember seeing any; and yet I am sure there must have
been some—or some sort of creature like a rat.
Then I asked Gub-Gub. And what he was chiefly concerned to hear was the
kind of vegetables we had fed on. (Dab-Dab snorted at me for my pains
and said I should have known better than to ask him.) I tried my mother.
She wanted to know how we had managed when our underwear wore out—and a
whole lot of other matters about our living conditions, hardly any of
which I could answer. Next I went to Matthew Mugg. And the things he
wanted to learn were worse than either my mother’s or Jip’s: Were there
any shops in the Moon? What were the dogs and cats like? The good
Cats’-meat-Man seemed to have imagined it a place not very different
from Puddleby or the East End of London.
No, trying to get at what most people wanted to read concerning the Moon
did not bring me much profit. I couldn’t seem to tell them any of the
things they were most anxious to know. It reminded me of the first time
I had come to the Doctor’s house, hoping to be hired as his assistant,
and dear old Polynesia the parrot had questioned me. “Are you a good
noticer?” she had asked. I had always thought I was—pretty good anyhow.
But now I felt I had been a very poor noticer. For it seemed I hadn’t
noticed any of the things I should have done to make the story of our
voyage interesting to the ordinary public.
The trouble was of course _attention_. Human attention is like butter:
you can only spread it so thin and no thinner. If you try to spread it
over too many things at once you just don’t remember them. And certainly
during all our waking hours upon the Moon there was so much for our ears
and eyes and minds to take in it is a wonder, I often think, that any
clear memories at all remain.
The one who could have been of most help to me in writing my impressions
of the Moon was Jamaro Bumblelily, the giant moth who carried us there.
But as he was nowhere near me when I set to work upon this book I
decided I had better not consider the particular wishes of Jip, Gub-Gub,
my mother, Matthew or any one else, but set the story down in my own
way. Clearly the tale must be in any case an imperfect, incomplete one.
And the only thing to do is to go forward with it, step by step, to the
best of my recollection, from where the great insect hovered, with our
beating hearts pressed close against his broad back, over the near and
glowing landscape of the Moon.
* * * * *
Any one could tell that the moth knew every detail of the country we
were landing in. Planing, circling and diving, he brought his
wide-winged body very deliberately down towards a little valley fenced
in with hills. The bottom of this, I saw as we drew nearer, was level,
sandy and dry.
The hills struck one at once as unusual. In fact all the mountains as
well (for much greater heights could presently be seen towering away in
the dim greenish light behind the nearer, lower ranges) had one
peculiarity. The tops seemed to be cut off and cup-like. The Doctor
afterwards explained to me that they were extinct volcanoes. Nearly all
these peaks had once belched fire and molten lava but were now cold and
dead. Some had been fretted and worn by winds and weather and time into
quite curious shapes; and yet others had been filled up or half buried
by drifting sand so that they had nearly lost the appearance of
volcanoes. I was reminded of “The Whispering Rocks” which we had seen in
Spidermonkey Island. And though this scene was different in many things,
no one who had ever looked upon a volcanic landscape before could have
mistaken it for anything else.
The little valley, long and narrow, which we were apparently making for
did not show many signs of life, vegetable or animal. But we were not
disturbed by that. At least the Doctor wasn’t. He had seen a tree and he
was satisfied that before long he would find water, vegetation and
creatures.
At last when the moth had dropped within twenty feet of the ground he
spread his wings motionless and like a great kite gently touched the
sand, in hops at first, then ran a little, braced himself and came to a
standstill.
_We had landed on the Moon!_
By this time we had had a chance to get a little more used to the new
air. But before we made any attempt to “go ashore” the Doctor thought it
best to ask our gallant steed to stay where he was a while, so that we
could still further accustom ourselves to the new atmosphere and
conditions.
This request was willingly granted. Indeed the poor insect himself, I
imagine, was glad enough to rest a while. From somewhere in his packages
John Dolittle produced an emergency ration of chocolate which he had
been saving up. All four of us munched in silence, too hungry and too
awed by our new surroundings to say a word.
The light changed unceasingly. It reminded me of the Northern Lights,
the Aurora Borealis. You would gaze at the mountains above you, then
turn away a moment, and on looking back find everything that had been
pink was now green, the shadows that had been violet were rose.
Breathing was still kind of difficult. We were compelled for the moment
to keep the “moon-bells” handy. These were the great orange-colored
flowers that the moth had brought down for us. It was their perfume (or
gas) that had enabled us to cross the airless belt that lay between the
Moon and the Earth. A fit of coughing was always liable to come on if
one left them too long. But already we felt that we could in time get
used to this new air and soon do without the bells altogether.
[Illustration: “Zip!—_The spring was made_”]
The gravity too was very confusing. It required hardly any effort to
rise from a sitting position to a standing one. Walking was no effort at
all—for the muscles—but for the lungs it was another question. The
most extraordinary sensation was jumping. The least little spring from
the ankles sent you flying into the air in the most fantastic fashion.
If it had not been for this problem of breathing properly (which the
Doctor seemed to feel we should approach with great caution on account
of its possible effect on the heart) we would all have given ourselves
up to this most light-hearted feeling which took possession of us. I
remember, myself, singing songs—the melody was somewhat indistinct on
account of a large mouthful of chocolate—and I was most anxious to get
down off the moth’s back and go bounding away across the hills and
valleys to explore this new world.
But I realize now that John Dolittle was very wise in making us wait. He
issued orders (in the low whispers which we found necessary in this new
clear air) to each and all of us that for the present the flowers were
_not_ to be left behind for a single moment.
They were cumbersome things to carry but we obeyed orders. No ladder was
needed now to descend by. The gentlest jump sent one flying off the
insect’s back to the ground where you landed from a twenty-five-foot
drop with ease and comfort.
Zip! The spring was made. And we were wading in the sands of a new
world.
THE SECOND CHAPTER
The Land of Colors and Perfumes
We were after all, when you come to think of it, a very odd party, this,
which made the first landing on a new world. But in a great many ways it
was a peculiarly good combination. First of all, Polynesia: she was the
kind of bird which one always supposed would exist under any conditions,
drought, floods, fire or frost. I’ve no doubt that at that time in my
boyish way I exaggerated Polynesia’s adaptability and endurance. But
even to this day I can never quite imagine any circumstances in which
that remarkable bird would perish. If she could get a pinch of seed (of
almost any kind) and a sip of water two or three times a week she would
not only carry on quite cheerfully but would scarcely even remark upon
the strange nature or scantiness of the rations.
Then Chee-Chee: he was not so easily provided for in the matter of food.
But he always seemed to be able to provide for himself anything that was
lacking. I have never known a better forager than Chee-Chee. When every
one was hungry he could go off into an entirely new forest and just by
smelling the wild fruits and nuts he could tell if they were safe to
eat. How he did this even John Dolittle could never find out. Indeed
Chee-Chee himself didn’t know.
Then myself: I had no scientific qualifications but I had learned how to
be a good secretary on natural history expeditions and I knew a good
deal about the Doctor’s ways.
Finally there was the Doctor. No naturalist has ever gone afield to
grasp at the secrets of a new land with the qualities John Dolittle
possessed. He never claimed to know anything, beforehand, for certain.
He came to new problems with a child-like innocence which made it easy
for himself to learn and the others to teach.
[Illustration: “_By smelling he could tell if they were safe to eat_”]
Yes, it was a strange party we made up. Most scientists would have
laughed at us no doubt. Yet we had many things to recommend us that no
expedition ever carried before.
As usual the Doctor wasted no time in preliminaries. Most other
explorers would have begun by planting a flag and singing national
anthems. Not so with John Dolittle. As soon as he was sure that we were
all ready he gave the order to march. And without a word Chee-Chee and I
(with Polynesia who perched herself on my shoulder) fell in behind him
and started off.
I have never known a time when it was harder to shake loose the feeling
of living in a dream as those first few hours we spent on the Moon. The
knowledge that we were treading a new world never before visited by Man,
added to this extraordinary feeling caused by the gravity, of lightness,
of walking on air, made you want every minute to have some one tell you
that you were actually awake and in your right senses. For this reason I
kept constantly speaking to the Doctor or Chee-Chee or Polynesia—even
when I had nothing particular to say. But the uncanny booming of my own
voice every time I opened my lips and spoke above the faintest whisper
merely added to the dream-like effect of the whole experience.
However, little by little, we grew accustomed to it. And certainly there
was no lack of new sights and impressions to occupy our minds. Those
strange and ever changing colors in the landscape were most bewildering,
throwing out your course and sense of direction entirely. The Doctor had
brought a small pocket compass with him. But on consulting it, we saw
that it was even more confused than we were. The needle did nothing but
whirl around in the craziest fashion and no amount of steadying would
persuade it to stay still.
Giving that up, the Doctor determined to rely on his Moon maps and his
own eyesight and bump of locality. He was heading towards where he had
seen that tree—which was at the end of one of the ranges. But all the
ranges in this section seemed very much alike. The maps did not help us
in this respect in the least. To our rear we could see certain peaks
which we thought we could identify on the charts. But ahead nothing
fitted in at all. This made us feel surer than ever that we were moving
toward the Moon’s other side which earthly eyes had never seen.
[Illustration: “_The Doctor had brought a compass_”]
“It is likely enough, Stubbins,” said the Doctor as we strode along
lightly forward over loose sand which would ordinarily have been very
heavy going, “that it is _only_ on the other side that water exists.
Which may partly be the reason why astronomers never believed there was
any here at all.”
For my part I was so on the lookout for extraordinary sights that it did
not occur to me, till the Doctor spoke of it, that the temperature was
extremely mild and agreeable. One of the things that John Dolittle had
feared was that we should find a heat that was unbearable or a cold that
was worse than Arctic. But except for the difficulty of the strange new
quality of the air, no human could have asked for a nicer climate. A
gentle steady wind was blowing and the temperature seemed to remain
almost constantly the same.
We looked about everywhere for tracks. As yet we knew very little of
what animal life to expect. But the loose sand told nothing, not even to
Chee-Chee, who was a pretty experienced hand at picking up tracks of the
most unusual kind.
Of odors and scents there were plenty—most of them very delightful
flower perfumes which the wind brought to us from the other side of the
mountain ranges ahead. Occasionally a very disagreeable one would come,
mixed up with the pleasant scents. But none of them, except that of the
moon-bells the moth had brought with us, could we recognize.
On and on we went for miles, crossing ridge after ridge and still no
glimpse did we get of the Doctor’s tree. Of course crossing the ranges
was not nearly as hard traveling as it would have been on Earth. Jumping
and bounding both upward and downward was extraordinarily easy. Still we
had brought a good deal of baggage with us and all of us were pretty
heavy-laden; and after two and a half hours of travel we began to feel a
little discouraged. Polynesia then volunteered to fly ahead and
reconnoiter but this the Doctor was loath to have her do. For some
reason he wanted us all to stick together for the present.
[Illustration: “_Jumping was extraordinarily easy_”]
However, after another half hour of going he consented to let her fly
straight up so long as she remained in sight, to see if she could spy
out the tree’s position from a greater height.
THE THIRD CHAPTER
Thirst!
So we rested on our bundles a spell while Polynesia gave an imitation of
a soaring vulture and straight above our heads climbed and climbed. At
about a thousand feet she paused and circled. Then slowly came down
again. The Doctor, watching her, grew impatient at her speed. I could
not quite make out why he was so unwilling to have her away from his
side but I asked no questions.
Yes, she had seen the tree, she told us, but it still seemed a long way
off. The Doctor wanted to know why she had taken so long in coming down
and she said she had been making sure of her bearings so that she would
be able to act as guide. Indeed, with the usual accuracy of birds, she
had a very clear idea of the direction we should take. And we set off
again, feeling more at ease and confident.
The truth of it was of course that seen from a great height, as the tree
had first appeared to us, the distance had seemed much less than it
actually was. Two more things helped to mislead us. One, that the Moon
air, as we now discovered, made everything look nearer than it actually
was in spite of the soft dim light. And the other was that we had
supposed the tree to be one of ordinary earthly size and had made an
unconscious guess at its distance in keeping with a fair-sized oak or
elm. Whereas when we did actually reach it we found it to be
unimaginably huge.
[Illustration: “_It was different from any tree I have ever seen_”]
I shall never forget that tree. It was our first experience of moon
life, _in_ the Moon. Darkness was coming on when we finally halted
beneath it. When I say _darkness_ I mean that strange kind of twilight
which was the nearest thing to night which we ever saw in the Moon. The
tree’s height, I should say, would be at least three hundred feet and
the width of it across the trunk a good forty or fifty. Its appearance
in general was most uncanny. The whole design of it was different from
any tree I have ever seen. Yet there was no mistaking it for anything
else. It seemed—how shall I describe it?—_alive_. Poor Chee-Chee was
so scared of it his hair just stood up on the nape of his neck and it
was a long time before the Doctor and I persuaded him to help us pitch
camp beneath its boughs.
Indeed we were a very subdued party that prepared to spend its first
night on the Moon. No one knew just what it was that oppressed us but we
were all conscious of a definite feeling of disturbance. The wind still
blew—in that gentle, steady way that the moon winds always blew. The
light was clear enough to see outlines by, although most of the night
the Earth was invisible and there was no reflection whatever.
I remember how the Doctor, while we were unpacking and laying out the
rest of our chocolate ration for supper, kept glancing uneasily up at
those strange limbs of the tree overhead.
Of course it was the wind that was moving them—no doubt of that at all.
Yet the wind was so deadly regular and even. And the movement of the
boughs wasn’t regular at all. That was the weird part of it. It almost
seemed as though the tree were doing some moving on its own, like an
animal chained by its feet in the ground. And still you could never be
sure—because after all the wind _was_ blowing all the time.
And besides it moaned. Well, we knew trees moaned in the wind at home.
But this one did it differently—it didn’t seem in keeping with that
regular even wind which we felt upon our faces.
I could see that even the worldly-wise practical Polynesia was perplexed
and upset. And it took a great deal to disturb her. Yet a bird’s senses
towards trees and winds are much keener than a man’s. I kept hoping she
would venture into the branches of the tree; but she didn’t. And as for
Chee-Chee, also a natural denizen of the forest, no power on earth, I
felt sure, would persuade him to investigate the mysteries of this
strange specimen of a Vegetable Kingdom we were as yet only distantly
acquainted with.
[Illustration: “_The Doctor kept glancing up uneasily_”]
After supper was despatched, the Doctor kept me busy for some hours
taking down notes. There was much to be recorded of this first day in a
new world. The temperature; the direction and force of the wind; the
time of our arrival—as near as it could be guessed; the air pressure
(he had brought along a small barometer among his instruments) and many
other things which, while they were dry stuff for the ordinary mortal,
were highly important for the scientist.
Often and often I have wished that I had one of those memories that seem
to be able to recall all impressions no matter how small and
unimportant. For instance I have often wanted to remember exactly the
first awakening on the Moon. We had all been weary enough with
excitement and exercise, when we went to bed, to sleep soundly. All I
can remember of my waking up is spending at least ten minutes working
out where I was. And I doubt if I could have done it even then if I had
not finally realized that John Dolittle was awake ahead of me and
already pottering around among his instruments, taking readings.
The immediate business now on hand was food. There was literally nothing
for breakfast. The Doctor began to regret his hasty departure from the
moth. Indeed it was only now, many, many hours after we had left him in
our unceremonious haste to find the tree and explore the new world, that
we realized that we had not as yet seen any signs of animal life. Still
it seemed a long way to go back and consult him; and it was by no means
certain that he would still be there.
Just the same, we needed food and food we were going to find. Hastily we
bundled together what things we had unpacked for the night’s camping.
Which way to go? Clearly if we had here reached one tree, there must be
some direction in which others lay, where we could find that water which
the Doctor was so sure must exist. But we could scan the horizon with
staring eyes or telescope as much as we wished and not another leaf of a
tree could we see.
This time without waiting to be ordered Polynesia soared into the air to
do a little scouting.
“Well,” she said on her return, “I don’t see any actual trees at all.
The beastly landscape is more like the Sahara Desert than any scenery
I’ve ever run into. But over there behind that higher range—the one
with the curious hat-shaped peak in the middle—you see the one I mean?”
“Yes,” said the Doctor. “I see. Go on.”
“Well, behind that there is a dark horizon different from any other
quarter. I won’t swear it is trees. But myself, I feel convinced that
there is something else there besides sand. We had better get moving. It
is no short walk.”
Indeed it _was_ no short walk. It came to be a forced march or race
between us and starvation. On starting out we had not foreseen anything
of the kind. Going off without breakfast was nothing after all. Each one
of us had done that before many a time. But as hour after hour went by
and still the landscape remained a desert of rolling sand-dunes, hills
and dead dry volcanoes, our spirits fell lower and lower.
This was one of the times when I think I saw John Dolittle really at his
best. I know, although I had not questioned him, that he had already
been beset with anxiety over several matters on the first steps of our
march. Later he spoke of them to me: not at the time. And as conditions
grew worse, as hunger gnawed at our vitals and the most terrible thirst
parched our tongues—as strength and vitality began to give way and mere
walking became the most terrible hardship, the Doctor grew cheerier and
cheerier. He didn’t crack dry jokes in an irritating way either. But by
some strange means he managed to keep the whole party in good mood. If
he told a funny story it was always at the right time and set us all
laughing at our troubles. In talking to him afterwards about this I
learned that he had, when a young man, been employed on more than one
exploration trip to keep the expedition in good humor. It was, he said,
the only way he could persuade the chief to take him, since at that time
he had no scientific training to recommend him.
[Illustration: “_Polynesia soared into the air_”]
Anyway I sincerely doubt whether our party would have held out if it had
not been for his sympathetic and cheering company. The agonies of thirst
were something new to me. Every step I thought must be my last.
[Illustration: “_I remember Chee-Chee trickling something cool between
my lips_”]
Finally at what seemed to be the end of our second day, I vaguely heard
Polynesia saying something about “Forests ahead!” I imagine I must have
been half delirious by then. I still staggered along, blindly following
the others. I know we _did_ reach water because before I fell and dozed
away into a sort of half faint I remember Chee-Chee trickling something
marvelously cool between my lips out of a cup made from a folded leaf.
THE FOURTH CHAPTER
Chee-Chee the Hero
When I awoke I felt very much ashamed of myself. What an explorer! The
Doctor was moving around already—and, of course, Chee-Chee and
Polynesia. John Dolittle came to my side immediately he saw I was awake.
As though he knew the thoughts that were in my mind he at once started
to reprimand me for feeling ashamed of my performance. He pointed out
that after all Chee-Chee and Polynesia were accustomed to traveling in
hot dry climates and that so, for that matter, was he himself.
“Taken all in all, Stubbins,” said he, “your own performance has been
extremely good. You made the trip, the whole way, and only collapsed
when relief was in sight. No one could ask for more than that. I have
known many experienced explorers who couldn’t have done nearly as well.
It was a hard lap—a devilish hard lap. You were magnificent. Sit up and
have some breakfast. Thank goodness, we’ve reached food at last!”
Weak and frowsty, I sat up. Arranged immediately around me was a
collection of what I later learned were fruits. The reliable Chee-Chee,
scared though he might be of a moving tree or a whispering wind, had
served the whole party with that wonderful sense of his for scenting out
wild foodstuffs. Not one of the strange courses on the bill of fare had
I or the Doctor seen before. But if Chee-Chee said they were safe we
knew we need not fear.
Some of the fruits were as big as a large trunk; some as small as a
walnut. But, starving as we were, we just dived in and ate and ate and
ate. Water there was too, gathered in the shells of enormous nuts and
odd vessels made from twisted leaves. Never has a breakfast tasted so
marvelous as did that one of fruits which I could not name.
[Illustration: “_Some of the fruits were as big as a trunk_”]
Chee-Chee!—Poor little timid Chee-Chee, who conquered your own fears
and volunteered to go ahead of us, alone, into the jungle to find food
when our strength was giving out. To the world you were just an
organ-grinder’s monkey. But to us whom you saved from starvation, when
terror beset you at every step, you will forever be ranked high in the
list of the great heroes of all time. Thank goodness we had you with us!
Our bones might to-day be mouldering in the sands of the Moon if it had
not been for your un-taught science, your jungle skill—and, above all,
your courage that overcame your fear!
Well, to return: as I ate these strange fruits and sipped the water that
brought life back I gazed upward and saw before me a sort of ridge. On
its level top a vegetation, a kind of tangled forest, flourished; and
trailing down from this ridge were little outposts of the Vegetable
Kingdom, groups of bushes and single trees, that scattered and dribbled
away in several directions from the main mass. Why and how that lone
tree survived so far away we could never satisfactorily explain. The
nearest John Dolittle could come to it was that some underground spring
supplied it with enough water or moisture to carry on. Yet there can be
no doubt that to have reached such enormous proportions it must have
been there hundreds—perhaps thousands—of years. Anyway it is a good
thing for us it _was_ there. If it had not been, as a pointer towards
this habitable quarter of the Moon—it is most likely our whole
expedition would have perished.
When the Doctor and I had finished our mysterious breakfast we started
to question Chee-Chee about the forest from which he had produced the
food we had eaten.
[Illustration: “‘_I climbed a tree_’”]
“I don’t know how I did it,” said Chee-Chee when we asked him, “I just
shut my eyes most of the time—terribly afraid. I passed trees, plants,
creepers, roots. I smelt—Goodness! I too was hungry, remember. I smelt
hard as I could. And soon of course I spotted food, fruits. I climbed a
tree—half the time with my eyes shut. Then I see some monster, golly!
What a jungle—different from any monkey ever seen before—Woolly,
woolly!—Ooh, ooh! All the same, nuts smell good. Catch a few. Chase
down the tree. Run some more. Smell again. Good!—Up another tree.
Different fruit, good just the same. Catch a few. Down again. Run home.
On the way smell good root. Same as ginger—only better. Dig a little.
Keep eyes shut—don’t want to see monster. Catch a piece of root. Run
all the way home. Here I am. Finish!”
Well, dear old Chee-Chee’s story was descriptive of his own heroic
adventures but it did not give us much idea of the moon forest which we
were to explore. Nevertheless, rested and fit, we now felt much more
inclined to look into things ourselves.
Leaving what luggage we had brought with us from our original landing
point, we proceeded towards the line of trees at the summit of the
bluff, about four miles ahead of us. We now felt that we could find our
way back without much difficulty to the two last camps we had
established.
The going was about the same, loose sand—only that as we approached the
bluff we found the sand firmer to the tread.
On the way up the last lap towards the vegetation line we were out of
view of the top itself. Often the going was steep. All the way I had the
feeling that we were about to make new and great discoveries—that for
the first time we were to learn something important about the true
nature of the mysterious Moon.
THE FIFTH CHAPTER
On the Plateau
Indeed our first close acquaintance with the forests of the Moon was
made in quite a dramatic manner. If it had been on a stage it could not
have been arranged better for effect. Suddenly as our heads topped the
bluff we saw a wall of jungle some mile or so ahead of us. It would take
a very long time to describe those trees in detail. It wasn’t that there
were so many kinds but each one was so utterly different from any tree
we had seen on the Earth. And yet, curiously enough, they did remind you
of vegetable forms you had seen, but not of trees.
For instance, there was one whole section, several square miles in
extent apparently, that looked exactly like ferns. Another reminded me
of a certain flowering plant (I can’t recall the name of it) which grows
a vast number of small blossoms on a flat surface at the top. The stems
are a curious whitish green. This moon tree was _exactly_ the same, only
nearly a thousand times as big. The denseness of the foliage (or
flowering) at the top was so compact and solid that we later found no
rain could penetrate it. And for this reason the Doctor and I gave it
the name of the _Umbrella Tree_. But not one single tree was there which
was the same as any tree we had seen before. And there were many, many
more curious growths that dimly reminded you of something, though you
could not always say exactly what.
[Illustration: “_We approached the bluff on whose brow the vegetation
flourished_”]
One odd thing that disturbed us quite a little was a strange sound.
Noises of any kind, no matter how faint, we already knew could travel
long distances on the Moon. As soon as we had gained the plateau on top
of the bluff we heard it. It was a musical sound. And yet not the sound
of a single instrument. It seemed almost as though there was a small
orchestra somewhere playing very, very softly. We were by this time
becoming accustomed to strange things. But I must confess that this
distant hidden music upset me quite a little and so, I know, it did the
Doctor.
[Illustration: _The Umbrella Tree_]
At the top of the bluff we rested to get our wind before we covered the
last mile up to the jungle itself. It was curious how clearly marked and
separated were those sections of the Moon’s landscape. And yet doubtless
the smaller scale of all the geographical features of this world, so
much less in bulk than our own, could partly account for that. In front
of us a plateau stretched out, composed of hard sand, level and smooth
as a lake, bounded in front by the jungle and to the rear of us by the
cliff we had just scaled. I wondered as I looked across at the forest
what scenery began on the other side of the woods and if it broke off in
as sharp a change as it did here.
As the most important thing to attend to first was the establishment of
a water supply, Chee-Chee was asked to act as guide. The monkey set out
ahead of us to follow his own tracks which he had made last night. This
he had little difficulty in doing across the open plateau. But when we
reached the edge of the forest it was not so easy. Much of his traveling
here had been done by swinging through the trees. He always felt safer
so, he said, while explaining to us how he had been guided to the water
by the sense of smell.
Again I realized how lucky we had been to have him with us. No one but a
monkey could have found his way through that dense, dimly lit forest to
water. He asked us to stay behind a moment on the edge of the woods
while he went forward to make sure that he could retrace his steps. We
sat down again and waited.
“Did you wake up at all during the night, Stubbins?” the Doctor asked
after a little.
“No,” I said. “I was far too tired. Why?”
“Did you, Polynesia?” he asked, ignoring my question.
“Yes,” said she. “I was awake several times.”
“Did you hear or see anything er—unusual?”
“Yes,” said she. “I can’t be absolutely certain. But I sort of felt
there was something moving around the camp keeping a watch on us.”
“Humph!” muttered the Doctor. “So did I.”
Then he relapsed into silence.
[Illustration: “_‘Yes,’ said she, ‘I was awake several times’_”]
Another rather strange thing that struck me as I gazed over the
landscape while we waited for Chee-Chee to return was the appearance of
the horizon. The Moon’s width being so much smaller than the Earth’s,
the distance one could see was a great deal shorter. This did not apply
so much where the land was hilly or mountainous; but on the level, or
the nearly level, it made a very striking difference. The _roundness_ of
this world was much more easily felt and understood than was that of the
world we had left. On this plateau, for example, you could only see
seven or eight miles, it seemed, over the level before the curve cut off
your vision. And it gave quite a new character even to the hills, where
peaks showed behind other ranges, dropping downward in a way that misled
you entirely as to their actual height.
[Illustration: “_‘You bet they were not!’ grunted Polynesia_”]
Finally Chee-Chee came back to us and said he had successfully retraced
his steps to the water he had found the night before. He was now
prepared to lead us to it. He looked kind of scared and ill at ease. The
Doctor asked him the reason for this, but he didn’t seem able to give
any.
“Everything’s all right, Doctor,” said he—“at least I suppose it is. It
was partly that—oh, I don’t know—I can’t quite make out what it is
they have asked you here for. I haven’t actually laid eyes on any animal
life since we left the moth who brought us. Yet I feel certain that
there’s lots of it here. It doesn’t appear to want to be seen. That’s
what puzzles me. On the Earth the animals were never slow in coming
forward when they were in need of your services.”
“You bet they were not!” grunted Polynesia. “No one who ever saw them
clamoring around the surgery door could doubt that.”
“Humph!” the Doctor muttered. “I’ve noticed it myself already. I don’t
understand it quite—either. It almost looks as though there were
something about our arrival which they didn’t like. . . . I
wonder. . . . Well, anyway, I wish the animal life here would get in
touch with us and let us know what it is all about. This state of things
is, to say the least—er—upsetting.”
THE SIXTH CHAPTER
The Moon Lake
And so we went forward with Chee-Chee as guide to find the water. Our
actual entrance into that jungle was quite an experience and very
different from merely a distant view of it. The light outside was not
bright; inside the woods it was dimmer still. My only other experience
of jungle life had been in Spidermonkey Island. This was something like
the Spidermonkey forest and yet it was strikingly different.
From the appearance and size of that first tree we had reached, the
Doctor had guessed its age to be very, very great. Here the vegetable
life in general seemed to bear out that idea beyond all question. The
enormous trees with their gigantic trunks looked as though they had been
there since the beginning of time. And there was surprisingly little
decay—a few shed limbs and leaves. That was all. In unkept earthly
forests one saw dead trees everywhere, fallen to the ground or caught
half-way in the crotches of other trees, withered and dry. Not so here.
Every tree looked as though it had stood so and grown in peace for
centuries.
At length after a good deal of arduous travel—the going for the most
part was made slow by the heaviest kind of undergrowth, with vines and
creepers as thick as your leg—we came to a sort of open place in which
lay a broad calm lake with a pleasant waterfall at one end. The woods
that surrounded it were most peculiar. They looked like enormous
asparagus. For many, many square miles their tremendous masts rose,
close together, in ranks. No creepers or vines had here been given a
chance to flourish. The enormous stalks had taken up all the room and
the nourishment of the crowded earth. The tapering tops, hundreds of
feet above our heads, looked good enough to eat. Yet I’ve no doubt that
if we had ever got up to them they would have been found as hard as
oaks.
The Doctor walked down to the clean sandy shore of the lake and tried
the water. Chee-Chee and I did the same. It was pure and clear and
quenching to the thirst. The lake must have been at least five miles
wide in the center.
“I would like,” said John Dolittle, “to explore this by boat. Do you
suppose, Chee-Chee, that we could find the makings of a canoe or a raft
anywhere?”
“I should think so,” said the monkey. “Wait a minute and I will take a
look around and see.”
So, with Chee-Chee in the lead, we proceeded along the shore in search
of materials for a boat. On account of that scarcity of dead or dried
wood which we had already noticed, our search did not at first appear a
very promising one. Nearly all the standing trees were pretty heavy and
full of sap. For our work of boat building a light hatchet on the
Doctor’s belt was the best tool we had. It looked sadly small compared
with the great timber that reared up from the shores of the lake.
But after we had gone along about a mile I noticed Chee-Chee up ahead
stop and peer into the jungle. Then, after he had motioned to us with
his hand to hurry, he disappeared into the edge of the forest. On coming
up with him we found him stripping the creepers and moss off some
contrivance that lay just within the woods, not more than a hundred
yards from the water’s edge.
We all fell to, helping him, without any idea of what it might be we
were uncovering. There seemed almost no end to it. It was a long object,
immeasurably long. To me it looked like a dead tree—the first dead,
lying tree we had seen.
“What do you think it is, Chee-Chee?” asked the Doctor.
“It’s a boat,” said the monkey in a firm and matter-of-fact voice. “No
doubt of it at all in my mind. It’s a dug-out canoe. They used to use
them in Africa.”
“But, Chee-Chee,” cried John Dolittle, “look at the length! It’s a
full-sized Asparagus Tree. We’ve uncovered a hundred feet of it already
and still there’s more to come.”
“I can’t help that,” said Chee-Chee. “It’s a dug-out canoe just the
same. Crawl down with me here underneath it, Doctor, and I’ll show you
the marks of tools and fire. It has been turned upside down.”
With the monkey guiding him, the Doctor scrabbled down below the queer
object; and when he came forth there was a puzzled look on his face.
“Well, they _might_ be the marks of tools, Chee-Chee,” he was saying.
“But then again they might not. The traces of fire are more clear. But
that could be accidental. If the tree burned down it could very
easily—”
“The natives in my part of Africa,” Chee-Chee interrupted, “always used
fire to eat out the insides of their dug-out canoes. They built little
fires all along the tree, to hollow out the trunk so that they could sit
in it. The tools they used were very simple, just stone scoops to chop
out the charred wood with. I am sure this is a canoe, Doctor. But it
hasn’t been used in a long time. See how the bow has been shaped up into
a point.”
“I know,” said the Doctor. “But the Asparagus Tree has a natural point
at one end anyhow.”
“And, Chee-Chee,” put in Polynesia, “who in the name of goodness could
ever handle such a craft? Why, look, the thing is as long as a
battleship!”
Then followed a half-hour’s discussion, between the Doctor and Polynesia
on the one side and Chee-Chee on the other, as to whether the find we
had made was, or was not, a canoe. For me, I had no opinion. To my eyes
the object looked like an immensely long log, hollowed somewhat on the
one side, but whether by accident or design I could not tell.
In any case it was certainly too heavy and cumbersome for us to use. And
presently I edged into the argument with the suggestion that we go on
further and find materials for a raft or boat we _could_ handle.
The Doctor seemed rather glad of this excuse to end a fruitless
controversy, and soon we moved on in search of something which would
enable us to explore the waters of the lake. A march of a mile further
along the shore brought us to the woods that were not so heavy. Here the
immense asparagus forests gave way to a growth of smaller girth; and the
Doctor’s hatchet soon felled enough poles for us to make a raft from. We
laced them together with thongs of bark and found them sufficiently
buoyant when launched to carry us and our small supply of baggage with
ease. Where the water was shallow we used a long pole to punt with; and
when we wished to explore greater depths we employed sweeps, or oars,
which we fashioned roughly with the hatchet.
From the first moment we were afloat the Doctor kept me busy taking
notes for him. In the equipment he had brought with him there was a
fine-meshed landing net: and with it he searched along the shores for
signs of life in this moon lake, the first of its kind we had met with.
“It is very important, Stubbins,” said he, “to find out what fish we
have here. In evolution the fish life is a very important matter.”
“What is _evolution_?” asked Chee-Chee.
[Illustration: “_We used a long pole to punt with_”]
I started out to explain it to him but was soon called upon by the
Doctor to make more notes—for which I was not sorry, as the task turned
out to be a long and heavy one. Polynesia however took it up where I
left off and made short work of it.
“Evolution, Chee-Chee,” said she, “is the story of how Tommy got rid of
the tail you are carrying—because he didn’t need it any more—and the
story of how you grew it and kept it because you _did_ need it. . . .
_Evolution!_ Poof!—Professors’ talk. A long word for a simple matter.”
It turned out that our examination of the lake was neither exciting nor
profitable. We brought up all sorts of water-flies, many larvæ of
perfectly tremendous size, but we found as yet no fishes. The plant
life—water plant I mean—was abundant.
“I think,” said the Doctor, after we had poled ourselves around the lake
for several hours, “that there can be no doubt now that the Vegetable
Kingdom here is much more important than the Animal Kingdom. And what
there is of the Animal Kingdom seems to be mostly insect. However, we
will camp on the shore of this pleasant lake and perhaps we shall see
more later.”
So we brought our raft to anchor at about the place from which he had
started out and pitched camp on a stretch of clean yellow sand.
I shall never forget that night. It was uncanny. None of us slept well.
All through the hours of darkness we heard things moving around us.
Enormous things. Yet never did we see them or find out what they were.
The four of us were nevertheless certain we were being watched. Even
Polynesia was disturbed. There seemed no doubt that there was plenty of
animal life in the Moon, but it did not as yet want to show itself to
us. The newness of our surroundings alone was disturbing enough, without
this very uncomfortable feeling that something had made the moon folks
distrustful of us.
THE SEVENTH CHAPTER
Tracks of a Giant
Another thing which added to our sleeplessness that night was the
continuance of the mysterious music. But then so many strange things
contributed to our general mystification and vague feeling of anxiety
that it is hard to remember and distinguish them all.
The next morning after breakfasting on what remained of our fruits we
packed up and started off for further exploration. While the last of the
packing had been in progress Chee-Chee and Polynesia had gone ahead to
do a little advanced scouting for us. They formed an admirable team for
such work. Polynesia would fly above the forest and get long-distance
impressions from the air of what lay ahead while Chee-Chee would examine
the more lowly levels of the route to be followed, from the trees and
the ground.
The Doctor and I were just helping one another on with our packs when
Chee-Chee came rushing back to us in great excitement. His teeth were
chattering so he could hardly speak.
“What do you think, Doctor!” he stammered. “We’ve found tracks back
there. Tracks of a man! But so enormous! You’ve no idea. Come quick and
I’ll show you.”
The Doctor looked up sharply at the scared and excited monkey, pausing a
moment as though about to question him. Then he seemed to change his
mind and turned once more to the business of taking up the baggage. With
loads hoisted we gave a last glance around the camping ground to see if
anything had been forgotten or left.
[Illustration: “_‘What do you think, Doctor?’ he stammered_”]
Our route did not lie directly across the lake, which mostly sprawled
away to the right of our line of march. But we had to make our way
partly around the lower end of it. Wondering what new chapter lay ahead
of us, we fell in behind Chee-Chee and in silence started off along the
shore.
After about half an hour’s march we came to the mouth of a river which
ran into the upper end of the lake. Along the margin of this we followed
Chee-Chee for what seemed like another mile or so. Soon the shores of
the stream widened out and the woods fell back quite a distance from the
water’s edge. The nature of the ground was still clean firm sand.
Presently we saw Polynesia’s tiny figure ahead, waiting for us.
When we drew up with her we saw that she was standing by an enormous
foot-print. There was no doubt about its being a man’s, clear in every
detail. It was the most gigantic thing I have ever seen, a barefoot
track fully four yards in length. There wasn’t only one, either. Down
the shore the trail went on for a considerable distance; and the span
that the prints lay apart gave one some idea of the enormous stride of
the giant who had left this trail behind him.
Questioning and alarmed, Chee-Chee and Polynesia gazed silently up at
the Doctor for an explanation.
“Humph!” he muttered after a while. “So Man is here, too. My goodness,
what a monster! Let us follow the trail.”
Chee-Chee was undoubtedly scared of such a plan. It was clearly both his
and Polynesia’s idea that the further we got away from the maker of
those tracks the better. I could see terror and fright in the eyes of
both of them. But neither made any objection; and in silence we plodded
along, following in the path of this strange human who must, it would
seem, be something out of a fairy tale.
But alas! It was not more than a mile further on that the foot-prints
turned into the woods where, on the mosses and leaves beneath the trees,
no traces had been left at all. Then we turned about and followed the
river quite a distance to see if the creature had come back out on the
sands again. But never a sign could we see. Chee-Chee spent a good deal
of time too at the Doctor’s request trying to find his path through the
forest by any signs, such as broken limbs or marks in the earth which he
might have left behind. But not another trace could we find. Deciding
that he had merely come down to the stream to get a drink, we gave up
the pursuit and turned back to the line of our original march.
[Illustration: “_An enormous foot-print_”]
Again I was thankful that I had company on that expedition. It was
certainly a most curious and extraordinary experience. None of us spoke
very much but when we did it seemed that all of us had been thinking the
same things.
The woods grew more and more mysterious, and more and more _alive_, as
we went onward towards the other side of the Moon, the side that earthly
Man had never seen before. For one thing, the strange music seemed to
increase; and for another, there was more movement in the limbs of the
trees. Great branches that looked like arms, bunches of small twigs that
could have been hands, swung and moved and clawed the air in the most
uncanny fashion. And always that steady wind went on blowing, even,
regular and smooth.
All of the forest was not gloomy however. Much of it was unbelievably
beautiful. Acres of woods there were which presented nothing but a
gigantic sea of many-colored blossoms, colors that seemed like something
out of a dream, indescribable, yet clear in one’s memory as a definite
picture of something seen.
The Doctor as we went forward spoke very little; when he did it was
almost always on the same subject: “the absence of decay,” as he put it.
“I am utterly puzzled, Stubbins,” said he, in one of his longer
outbursts when we were resting. “Why, there is hardly any leaf-mould at
all!”
“What difference would that make, Doctor?” I asked.
“Well, that’s what the trees live on, mostly, in our world,” said he.
“The forest growth, I mean—the soil that is formed by dying trees and
rotting leaves—that is the nourishment that brings forth the seedlings
which finally grow into new trees. But here! Well, of course there is
_some_ soil—and some shedding of leaves. But I’ve hardly seen a dead
tree since I’ve been in these woods. One would almost think that there
were some—er—balance. Some _arrangement_ of—er—well—I can’t explain
it. . . . It beats me entirely.”
I did not, at the time, completely understand what he meant. And yet it
did seem as though every one of these giant plants that rose about us
led a life of peaceful growth, undisturbed by rot, by blight or by
disease.
[Illustration: “_There was more movement in the limbs of the trees_”]
Suddenly in our march we found ourselves at the end of the wooded
section. Hills and mountains again spread before us. They were not the
same as those we had first seen, however. These had vegetation, of a
kind, on them. Low shrubs and heath plants clothed this rolling land
with a dense growth—often very difficult to get through.
But still no sign of decay—little or no leaf-mould. The Doctor now
decided that perhaps part of the reason for this was the seasons—or
rather the lack of seasons. He said that we would probably find that
here there was no regular winter or summer. It was an entirely new
problem, so far as the struggle for existence was concerned, such as we
knew in our world.
THE EIGHTH CHAPTER
The Singing Trees
Into this new heath and hill country we traveled for miles. And
presently we arrived upon a rather curious thing. It was a sort of basin
high up and enclosed by hills or knolls. The strange part of it was that
here there were not only more tracks of the Giant Man, just as we had
seen lower down, but there were also unmistakable signs of _fire_. In an
enormous hollow ashes lay among the sands. The Doctor was very
interested in those ashes. He took some and added chemicals to them and
tested them in many ways. He confessed himself at last entirely puzzled
by their nature. But he said he nevertheless felt quite sure we had
stumbled on the scene of the smoke signaling we had seen from Puddleby.
Curiously long ago, it seemed, that time when Too-Too, the owl, had
insisted he saw smoke burst from the side of the Moon. That was when the
giant moth lay helpless in our garden. And yet—how long was it? Only a
few days!
“It was from here, Stubbins,” said the Doctor, “that the signals we saw
from the Earth were given out, I feel certain. This place, as you see,
is miles and miles across. But what was used to make an explosion as
large as the one we saw from my house I have no idea.”
“But it was smoke we saw,” said I, “not a flash.”
“That’s just it,” he said. “Some curious material must have been used
that we have as yet no knowledge of. I thought that by testing the ashes
I could discover what it was. But I can’t. However we may yet find out.”
[Illustration: “_It was a sort of basin_”]
For two reasons the Doctor was anxious for the present not to get too
far from the forest section. (We did not know then, you see, that there
were other wooded areas beside this through which we had just come.) One
reason was that we had to keep in touch with our food supply which
consisted of the fruits and vegetables of the jungle. The other was that
John Dolittle was absorbed now in the study of this Vegetable Kingdom
which he felt sure had many surprises in store for the student
naturalist.
After a while we began to get over the feeling of uncanny creepiness,
which at the beginning had made us so uncomfortable. We decided that our
fears were mostly caused by the fact that these woods and plants were so
different from our own. There was no unfriendliness in these forests
after all, we assured ourselves—except that we _were_ being watched.
That we knew—and that we were beginning to get used to.
As soon as the Doctor had decided that we would set up our new
headquarters on the edge of the forest, and we had our camp properly
established, we began making excursions in all directions through the
jungle. And from then on I was again kept very busy taking notes of the
Doctor’s experiments and studies.
One of the first discoveries we made in our study of the Moon’s
Vegetable Kingdom was that there was practically no warfare going on
between it and the Animal Kingdom. In the world we had left we had been
accustomed to see the horses and other creatures eating up the grass in
great quantities and many further examples of the struggle that
continually goes on between the two. Here, on the other hand, the
animals (or, more strictly speaking, the insects, for there seemed as
yet hardly any traces of other animal species) and the vegetable life
seemed for the most part to help one another rather than to fight and
destroy. Indeed we found the whole system of Life on the Moon a
singularly peaceful business. I will speak of this again later on.
We spent three whole days in the investigation of the strange music we
had heard. You will remember that the Doctor, with his skill on the
flute, was naturally fond of music; and this curious thing we had met
with interested him a great deal. After several expeditions we found
patches of the jungle where we were able to see and hear the tree music
working at its best.
There was no doubt about it at all: The trees were making the sounds and
they were doing it _deliberately_. In the way that an Æolian harp works
when set in the wind at the right angle, the trees moved their branches
to meet the wind so that certain notes would be given out. The evening
that the Doctor made this discovery of what he called the _Singing
Trees_, he told me to mark down in the diary of the expedition as a Red
Letter Date. I shall never forget it. We had been following the sound
for hours, the Doctor carrying a tuning-fork in his hand, ringing it
every once in a while to make sure of the notes we heard around us.
Suddenly we came upon a little clearing about which great giants of the
forest stood in a circle. It was for all the world like an orchestra.
Spellbound, we stood and gazed up at them, as first one and then another
would turn a branch to the steady blowing wind and a note would boom out
upon the night, clear and sweet. Then a group, three or four trees
around the glade, would swing a limb and a chord would strike the air,
and go murmuring through the jungle. Fantastic and crazy as it sounds,
no one could have any doubt who heard and watched that these trees were
actually making sounds, which they _wanted to make_, with the aid of the
wind.
Of course, as the Doctor remarked, unless the wind had always blown
steadily and evenly such a thing would have been impossible. John
Dolittle himself was most anxious to find out on what scale of music
they were working. To me, I must confess, it sounded just mildly
pleasant. There _was_ a time: I could hear that. And some whole phrases
repeated once in a while, but not often. For the most part the melody
was wild, sad and strange. But even to my uneducated ear it was beyond
all question a quite clear effort at orchestration; there were certainly
treble voices and bass voices and the combination was sweet and
agreeable.
[Illustration: “_Spellbound we gazed up at them_”]
I was excited enough myself, but the Doctor was worked up to a pitch of
interest such as I have seldom seen in him.
“Why, Stubbins,” said he, “do you realize what this means?—It’s
terrific. If these trees can sing, a choir understands one another and
all that, _they must have a language_.—They can talk! A language in the
Vegetable Kingdom! We must get after it. Who knows? I may yet learn it
myself. Stubbins, this is a great day!”
[Illustration: “_For quite a long while he sat watching certain
shrubs_”]
And so, as usual on such occasions, the good man’s enthusiasm just
carried him away bodily. For days, often without food, often without
sleep, he pursued this new study. And at his heels I trotted with my
note book always ready—though, to be sure, he put in far more work than
I did because frequently when we got home he would go on wrestling for
hours over the notes or new apparatus he was building, by which he hoped
to learn the language of the trees.
You will remember that even before we left the Earth John Dolittle had
mentioned the possibility of the moon-bells having some means of
communicating with one another. That they could move, within the limits
of their fixed position, had been fully established. To that we had
grown so used and accustomed that we no longer thought anything of it.
The Doctor had in fact wondered if this might possibly be a means of
conversation in itself—the movement of limbs and twigs and leaves,
something like a flag signal code. And for quite a long while he sat
watching certain trees and shrubs to see if they used this method for
talking between themselves.
THE NINTH CHAPTER
The Study of Plant Languages
About this time there was one person whom both the Doctor and I were
continually reminded of, and continually wishing for, and that was Long
Arrow, the Indian naturalist whom we had met in Spidermonkey Island. To
be sure, he had never admitted to the Doctor that he had had speech with
plant life. But his knowledge of botany and the natural history of the
Vegetable Kingdom was of such a curious kind we felt that here he would
have been of great help to us. Long Arrow, the son of Golden Arrow,
never booked a scientific note in his life. How would he—when he was
unable to write? Just the same he could tell you why a certain colored
bee visited a certain colored flower; why _that_ moth chose _that_ shrub
to lay its eggs in; why this particular grub attacked the roots of this
kind of water plant.
Often of an evening the Doctor and I would speak of him, wondering where
he was and what he was doing. When we sailed away from Spidermonkey
Island he was left behind. But that would not mean he stayed there. A
natural-born tramp who rejoiced in defying the elements and the
so-called laws of Nature, he could be looked for anywhere in the two
American continents.
And again, the Doctor would often refer to my parents. He evidently had
a very guilty feeling about them—despite the fact that it was no fault
of his that I had stowed away aboard the moth that brought us here. A
million and one things filled his mind these days, of course; but
whenever there was a let-down, a gap, in the stream of his scientific
enquiry, he would come back to the subject.
“Stubbins,” he’d say, “you shouldn’t have come. . . . Yes, yes, I know,
you did it for me. But Jacob, your father—and your mother too—they
must be fretting themselves sick about your disappearance. And I am
responsible. . . . Well, we can’t do anything about that now, I suppose.
Let’s get on with the work.”
And then he’d plunge ahead into some new subject and the matter would be
dropped—till it bothered him again.
Throughout all our investigations of the Moon’s Vegetable Kingdom we
could not get away from the idea that the animal life was still, for
some unknown reason, steering clear of us. By night, when we were
settling down to sleep, we’d often get the impression that huge moths,
butterflies or beetles were flying or crawling near us.
We made quite sure of this once or twice by jumping out of our beds and
seeing a giant shadow disappear into the gloom. Yet never could we get
near enough to distinguish what the creatures were before they escaped
beyond the range of sight. But that they had come—whatever they
were—to keep an eye on us seemed quite certain. Also that all of them
were winged. The Doctor had a theory that the lighter gravity of the
Moon had encouraged the development of wings to a much greater extent
than it had on the Earth.
And again those tracks of the strange Giant Man. They were always
turning up in the most unexpected places; I believe that if the Doctor
had allowed Polynesia and Chee-Chee complete liberty to follow them that
the enormous Human would have been run down in a very short time. But
John Dolittle seemed still anxious to keep his family together. I
imagine that with his curiously good instinctive judgment he feared an
attempt to separate us. And in any case of course both Chee-Chee and
Polynesia were quite invaluable in a tight place. They were neither of
them heavy-weight fighters, it is true; but their usefulness as scouts
and guides was enormous. I have often heard John Dolittle say that he
would sooner have that monkey or the parrot Polynesia with him in savage
countries than he would the escort of a dozen regiments.
[Illustration: “_Seeing a giant shadow disappear into the gloom_”]
With some of our experimental work we wandered off long distances into
the heath lands to see what we could do with the gorgeous flowering
shrubs that thronged the rolling downs; and often we followed the
streams many miles to study the gigantic lilies that swayed their
stately heads over the sedgy banks.
And little by little our very arduous labors began to be repaid.
I was quite astonished when I came to realize how well the Doctor had
prepared for this expedition. Shortly after he decided that he would set
to work on the investigation of this supposed language of the plants he
told me we would have to go back and fetch the remainder of our baggage
which we had left at the point of our first arrival.
So the following morning, bright and early, he, Chee-Chee and I set out
to retrace our steps. Polynesia was left behind. The Doctor told none of
us why he did this but we decided afterwards that, as usual, he knew
what he was doing.
It was a long and hard trip. It took us a day and a half going there and
two days coming back with the load of the baggage. At our original
landing place we again found many tracks of the Giant Human, and other
strange marks on the sands about our baggage-dump which told us that
here too curious eyes had been trying to find out things without being
seen.
A closer examination of the tracks made by the Giant Human in these
parts where they were especially clear told the Doctor that his right
leg stride was considerably longer than his left. The mysterious Moon
Man evidently walked with a limp. But with such a stride he would
clearly be a very formidable creature anyway.
When we got back and started unpacking the bundles and boxes which had
been left behind I saw, as I have already said, how well the Doctor had
prepared for his voyage. He seemed to have brought everything that he
could possibly need for the trip: hatchets, wire, nails, files, a hand
saw, all the things we couldn’t get on the Moon. It was so different
from his ordinary preparations for a voyage—which hardly ever consisted
of more than the little black bag and the clothes he stood in.
[Illustration: “_He seemed to have brought everything he could need_”]
As usual he rested only long enough to get a few mouthfuls of food
before he set to work. There seemed to be a dozen different apparatuses
he wanted to set up at once, some for the testing of sound, others for
vibrations, etc., etc. With the aid of a saw and an ax and a few other
tools, half a dozen small huts had sprung up in an hour around our camp.
THE TENTH CHAPTER
The Magellan of the Moon
Laying aside for the present all worry on the score of why he had been
summoned to the Moon—of why the Animal Kingdom continued to treat us
with suspicion, of why the Giant Human so carefully kept out of our way,
the Doctor now plunged into the study of plant languages heart and soul.
He was always happy so, working like a demon, snatching his meals and
his sleep here and there when he thought of such earthly matters. It was
a most exhausting time for the rest of us, keeping pace with this
firebrand of energy when he got on an interesting scent. And yet it was
well worthwhile too. In one and a half days he had established the fact
that the trees _did_ converse with one another by means of branch
gestures. But that was only the first step. Copying and practising, he
rigged himself up like a tree and talked in the glade—after a
fashion—with these centuries-old denizens of the jungle.
From that he learned still more—that language, of a kind, was carried
on by using other means—by scents given out, in a definite way—short
or long perfumes, like a regular Morse Code; by the tones of wind-song
when branches were set to the right angle to produce certain notes; and
many other odd strange means.
Every night, by bed-time, I was nearly dead from the strain and effort
of taking notes in those everlasting books, of which he seemed to have
brought an utterly inexhaustible supply.
[Illustration: “_The faithful monkey would come to us every three hours
with his strange vegetables_”]
Chee-Chee looked after the feeding of us—Thank goodness!—or I fear we
would easily have starved to death, if overwork itself hadn’t killed us.
Every three hours the faithful little monkey would come to us wherever
we were at the moment with his messes of strange vegetables and fruits
and a supply of good clean drinking water.
As official recorder of the Expedition (a job of which I was very proud
even if it was hard work) I had to book all the Doctor’s calculations as
well as his natural history notes. I have already told you something of
temperature, air pressure, time and what not. A further list of them
would have included the calculation of distance traveled. This was quite
difficult. The Doctor had brought with him a pedometer (that is a little
instrument which when carried in the pocket tells you from the number of
strides made the miles walked). But in the Moon, with the changed
gravity, a pace was quite different from that usual on the Earth. And
what is more, it never stayed the same. When the ground sloped downward
it was natural to spring a step that quite possibly measured six or
seven feet—this with no out-of-the-way effort at all. And even on the
up grade one quite frequently used a stride that was far greater than in
ordinary walking.
It was about this time that the Doctor first spoke of making a tour of
the Moon. Magellan, you will remember, was the first to sail around our
world. And it was a very great feat. The Earth contains more water than
land. The Moon on the contrary, we soon saw, had more dry land than
water. There were no big oceans. Lakes and chains of lakes were all the
water area we saw. To complete a round trip would therefore be harder,
even though it was shorter, than the voyage that Magellan made.
It was on this account that the Doctor was so particular about my
booking a strict record of the miles we traveled. As to direction, we
had not as yet been so careful about maintaining a perfectly straight
line. Because it was by no means easy for one thing; and for another,
the subjects we wished to study, such as tree-music, tracks, water
supply, rock formation, etc., often led us off towards every quarter of
the compass. When I say the _compass_ I mean something a little
different from the use of that word in the earthly geography. As I have
told you, the magnetic compass which John Dolittle had brought with him
from Puddleby did not behave in a helpful manner at all. Something else
must be found to take its place.
[Illustration: “_It was natural to spring a step that measured six or
seven feet_”]
John Dolittle, as usual, went after that problem too with much energy.
He was a very excellent mathematician, was the Doctor. And one afternoon
he sat down with a note book and the Nautical Almanac and worked out
tables which should tell him from the stars where he was and in what
direction he was going. It was curious, that strange sense of comfort we
drew from the stars. They, the heavenly bodies which from the Earth
seemed the remotest, most distant, unattainable and strangest of
objects, here suddenly became friendly; because, I suppose, they were
the only things that really stayed the same. The stars, as we saw them
from the Moon, were precisely as the stars we had seen from the Earth.
The fact that they were nearly all countless billions of miles away made
no difference. For us they were something that we had seen before and
knew.
[Illustration: “_We rigged up weather-vanes_”]
It was while we were at work on devising some contrivance to take the
place of the compass that we made the discovery of the explosive wood.
The Doctor after trying many things by which he hoped to keep a definite
direction had suddenly said one day:
“Why, Stubbins, I have it.—The wind! It always blows steady—and
probably from precisely the same quarter—or at all events with a
regular calculable change most likely. Let us test it and see.”
So right away we set to work to make various wind-testing devices. We
rigged up weather-vanes from long streamers of light bark. And then John
Dolittle hit upon the idea of smoke.
“That is something,” said he, “if we only place it properly, which will
warn us by smell if the wind changes. And in the meantime we can carry
on our studies of the Animal Kingdom and its languages.”
So without further ado we set to work to build fires—or rather large
smoke smudges—which should tell us how reliable our wind would be if
depended on for a source of direction.
THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER
We Prepare to Circle the Moon
We went to a lot of trouble working out how we could best place these
fires so that they should give us the most satisfactory results. First
of all we decided with much care on the exact position where we would
build them. Mostly they were on bare knolls or shoulders, where they
couldn’t spread to the underbrush and start a bush-fire. Then came the
question of fuel:—What would be the best wood to build them of?
There were practically no dead trees, as I have said. The only thing to
do then was to cut some timber down and let it dry.
This we proceeded to do but did not get very far with it before the
Doctor suddenly had qualms of conscience. Trees that could talk could,
one would suppose, also _feel_. The thought was dreadful. We hadn’t even
the courage to ask the trees about it—yet. So we fell back upon
gathering fallen twigs and small branches. This made the work heavier
still, because, of course, we needed a great deal of fuel to have fires
big enough to see and smell for any distance.
After a good deal of discussion we decided that this was a thing which
couldn’t be hurried. A great deal depended on its success. It was a
nuisance, truly, but we had just got to be patient. So we went back into
the jungle-lands and set to work on getting out various samples of woods
to try.
It took a longish time, for the Doctor and myself were the only ones who
could do this work. Chee-Chee tried to help by gathering twigs; but the
material we most needed was wood large enough to last a fair time.
[Illustration: “_Mostly they were on bare knolls_”]
Well, we harvested several different kinds. Some wouldn’t burn at all
when we tried them. Others, we found, were pretty fair burners, but not
smoky enough.
With about the fifth kind of wood, I think it was that we tested out, we
nearly had a serious accident. Fire seemed to be (outside of the traces
we had found of the smoke signal apparatus) a thing quite unusual in the
Moon. There were no traces of forest burnings anywhere, so far as we had
explored. It was therefore with a good deal of fear and caution that we
struck matches to test out our fuel.
About dusk one evening the Doctor set a match to a sort of fern wood
(something like a bamboo) and he narrowly escaped a bad burning. The
stuff flared up like gunpowder.
We took him off, Chee-Chee and I, and examined him. We found he had
suffered no serious injuries, though he had had a very close shave. His
hands were somewhat blistered and he told us what to get out of the
little black bag to relieve the inflammation.
We had all noticed that as the wood flared up it sent off dense masses
of white smoke. And for hours after the explosion clouds of heavy fumes
were still rolling round the hills near us.
When we had the Doctor patched up he told us he was sure that we had
stumbled by accident on the fuel that had been used for making the smoke
signals we had seen from Puddleby.
“But my goodness, Doctor,” said I, “what an immense bonfire it must have
been to be visible all that distance!—Thousands of tons of the stuff,
surely, must have been piled together to make a smudge which could be
seen that far.”
“And who could have made it?” put in Chee-Chee.
For a moment there was silence. Then Polynesia spoke the thought that
was in my mind—and I imagine in the Doctor’s too.
“The man who made those torches,” said she quietly, “could move an awful
lot of timber in one day, I’ll warrant.”
“You mean you think it was _he_ who sent the signals?” asked Chee-Chee,
his funny little eyes staring wide open with astonishment.
[Illustration: “‘_You mean you think it was he who sent the signals?_’”]
“Why not?” said Polynesia. Then she lapsed into silent contemplation and
no further questioning from Chee-Chee could get a word out of her.
“Well,” said the monkey at last, “if he _did_ send it that would look as
though he were responsible for the whole thing. It must have been he who
sent the moth down to us—who needed the Doctor’s assistance and
presence here.”
He looked towards John Dolittle for an answer to this suggestion. But
the Doctor, like Polynesia, didn’t seem to have anything to say.
Well, in spite of our little mishap, our wood tests with smoke were
extremely successful. We found that the wind as a direction-pointer
could certainly be relied on for three or four days at a time.
“Of course, Stubbins,” said the Doctor, “we will have to test again
before we set off on our round trip. It may be that the breeze, while
blowing in one prevailing direction now, may change after a week or so.
Also we will have to watch it that the mountain ranges don’t deflect the
wind’s course and so lead us astray. But from what we have seen so far,
I feel pretty sure that we have here something to take the place of the
compass.”
I made one or two attempts later, when Polynesia and Chee-Chee were out
of earshot, to discover what John Dolittle thought about this idea that
it had really been the Moon Man who had brought us here and not the
Animal Kingdom. I felt that possibly he might talk more freely to me
alone on the subject than he had been willing to with all of us
listening. But he was strangely untalkative.
[Illustration: “_‘I don’t know, Stubbins,’ said he, frowning_”]
“I don’t know, Stubbins,” said he, frowning, “I really don’t know. To
tell the truth, my mind is not occupied with that problem now—at all
events, not as a matter for immediate decision. This field of the lunar
Vegetable Kingdom is something that could take up the attention of a
hundred naturalists for a year or two. I feel we have only scratched the
surface. As we go forward into the unknown areas of the Moon’s further
side we are liable to make discoveries of—well, er—who can tell? When
the Moon Man and the Animal Kingdom make up their minds that they want
to get in touch with us, I suppose we shall hear from them. In the
meantime we have our work to do—more than we can do. . . . Gracious, I
wish I had a whole staff with me!—Surveyors, cartographers, geologists
and the rest. Think of it! Here we are, messing our way along across a
new world—and we don’t even know where we are! I think I have a vague
idea of the line we have followed. And I’ve tried to keep a sort of
chart of our march. But I should be making maps, Stubbins, real maps,
showing all the peaks, valleys, streams, lakes, plateaux and
everything.—Dear, dear! Well, we must do the best we can.”
THE TWELFTH CHAPTER
The Vanity Lilies
Of course on a globe larger than that of the Moon we could never have
done as well as we did. When you come to think of it, one man, a boy, a
monkey and a parrot, as a staff for the exploration of a whole world,
makes the expedition sound, to say the least, absurd.
We did not realize, any of us, when we started out from our first
landing that we were going to make a circular trip of the Moon’s globe.
It just worked out that way. To begin with, we were expecting every hour
that some part of the Animal Kingdom would come forward into the open.
But it didn’t. And still we went on. Then this language of the trees and
flowers came up and got the Doctor going on one of his fever-heat
investigations. That carried us still further. We always took great care
when departing from one district for an excursion of any length to leave
landmarks behind us, camps or dumps, so that we could find our way back
to food and shelter if we should get caught in a tight place.
In this sort of feeling our way forward Polynesia was most helpful. The
Doctor used to let her off regularly now to fly ahead of us and bring
back reports. That gave us some sort of idea of what we should prepare
for. Then in addition to that, the Doctor had brought with him several
small pocket surveying instruments with which he marked on his chart
roughly the points at which we changed course to any considerable
extent.
[Illustration: “_We always took care to leave landmarks behind us_”]
In the earlier stages of our trip we had felt we must keep in touch with
the first fruit section we had met with, in order to have a supply of
vegetables and fruits to rely on for food. But we soon discovered from
Polynesia’s scouting reports, that other wooded sections lay ahead of
us. To these we sent Chee-Chee, the expert, to investigate. And when he
returned and told us that they contained even a better diet than those
further back, we had no hesitation in leaving our old haunts and
venturing still further into the mysteries of the Moon’s Further Side.
The Doctor’s progress with the language of the trees and plants seemed
to improve with our penetration into the interior. Many times we stopped
and pitched camp for four or five days, while he set up some new
apparatus and struggled with fresh problems in plant language. It seemed
to grow easier and easier for him all the time. Certainly the plant life
became more elaborate and lively. By this we were all grown more
accustomed to strange things in the Vegetable Kingdom. And even to my
unscientific eyes it was quite evident that here the flowers and bushes
were communicating with one another with great freedom and in many
different ways.
I shall never forget our first meeting with the Vanity Lilies, as the
Doctor later came to call them. Great gaudy blooms they were, on long
slender stems that swayed and moved in groups like people whispering and
gossiping at a party. When we came in sight of them for the first time,
they were more or less motionless. But as we approached, the movement
among them increased as though they were disturbed by, or interested in,
our coming.
I think they were beyond all question the most beautiful flowers I have
ever seen. The wind, regular as ever, had not changed. But the heads of
these great masses of plants got so agitated as we drew near, that the
Doctor decided he would halt the expedition and investigate.
We pitched camp as we called it—a very simple business in the Moon,
because we did not have to raise tents or build a fire. It was really
only a matter of unpacking, getting out the food to eat and the bedding
to sleep in.
We were pretty weary after a full day’s march. Beyond the lily beds
(which lay in a sort of marsh) we could see a new jungle district with
more strange trees and flowering creepers.
[Illustration: “_Certainly the plant life became more elaborate and
lively_”]
After a short and silent supper, we lay down and pulled the covers over
us. The music of the forest grew louder as darkness increased. It seemed
almost as though the whole vegetable world was remarking on these
visitors who had invaded their home.
And then above the music of the woods we’d hear the drone of flying,
while we dropped off to sleep. Some of the giant insects were hovering
near, as usual, to keep an eye on these creatures from another world.
I think that of all experiences with the plant life of the Moon that
with the Vanity Lilies was perhaps the most peculiar and the most
thrilling. In about two days the Doctor had made extraordinary strides
in his study of this language. That, he explained to me, was due more to
the unusual intelligence of this species and its willingness to help
than to his own efforts. But of course if he had not already done
considerable work with the trees and bushes it is doubtful if the lilies
could have got in touch with him as quickly as they did.
By the end of the third day Chee-Chee, Polynesia and I were all
astonished to find that John Dolittle was actually able to carry on
conversation with these flowers. And this with the aid of very little
apparatus. He had now discovered that the Vanity Lilies spoke among
themselves largely by the movement of their blossoms. They used
different means of communication with species of plants and trees other
than their own—and also (we heard later) in talking with birds and
insects; but among themselves the swaying of the flower-heads was the
common method of speech.
The lilies, when seen in great banks, presented a very gorgeous and
wonderful appearance. The flowers would be, I should judge, about
eighteen inches across, trumpet-shaped and brilliantly colored. The
background was a soft cream tone and on this great blotches of violet
and orange were grouped around a jet-black tongue in the center. The
leaves were a deep olive green.
But it was that extraordinary look of alive intelligence that was the
most uncanny thing about them. No one, no matter how little he knew of
natural history in general or of the Moon’s Vegetable Kingdom, could see
those wonderful flowers without immediately being arrested by this
peculiar character. You felt at once that you were in the presence of
people rather than plants; and to talk with them, or to try to, seemed
the most natural thing in the world.
[Illustration: “_The flowers would be about eighteen inches across_”]
I filled up two of those numerous note books of the Doctor’s on his
conversations with the Vanity Lilies. Often he came back to these
flowers later, when he wanted further information about the Moon’s
Vegetable Kingdom. For as he explained to us, it was in this species
that Plant Life—so far at all events as it was known on either the Moon
or the Earth—had reached its highest point of development.
THE THIRTEENTH CHAPTER
The Flower of Many Scents
Another peculiar thing that baffled us completely, when we first came
into the marshy regions of the Vanity Lily’s home, was the variety of
scents which assailed our noses. For a mile or so around the locality
there was no other flower visible; the whole of the marsh seemed to have
been taken up by the lilies and nothing else intruded on their domain.
Yet at least half a dozen perfumes were distinct and clear. At first we
thought that perhaps the wind might be bringing us scents from other
plants either in the jungle or the flowering heath lands. But the
direction of the breeze was such that it could only come over the sandy
desert areas and was not likely to bring perfumes as strong as this.
It was the Doctor who first hit upon the idea that possibly the lily
could give off more than one scent at will. He set to work to find out
right away. And it took no more than a couple of minutes to convince him
that it could. He said he was sorry he had not got Jip with him. Jip’s
expert sense of smell would have been very useful here. But for ordinary
purposes it required nothing more delicate than an average human’s nose
to tell that this flower, when John Dolittle had communicated the idea
to it, was clearly able to give out at least half a dozen different
smells as it wished.
The majority of these perfumes were extremely agreeable. But there were
one or two that nearly knocked you down. It was only after the Doctor
had asked the lilies about this gift of theirs that they sent forth
obnoxious ones in demonstrating all the scents that they could give out.
Chee-Chee just fainted away at the first sample. It was like some deadly
gas. It got into your eyes and made them run. The Doctor and I only
escaped suffocation by flight—carrying the body of the unconscious
monkey along with us.
[Illustration: “_Chee-Chee just fainted away at the first sample_”]
The Vanity Lilies, seeing what distress they had caused, immediately
threw out the most soothing lovely scent I have ever smelled. Clearly
they were anxious to please us and cultivate our acquaintance. Indeed it
turned out later from their conversation with the Doctor (which I took
down word for word) that in spite of being a stationary part of the
Moon’s landscape, they had heard of John Dolittle, the great naturalist,
and had been watching for his arrival many days. They were in fact the
first creatures in our experience of the Moon that made us feel we were
among friends.
I think I could not do better, in trying to give you an idea of the
Doctor’s communication with the Vegetable Kingdom of the Moon, than to
set down from my diary, word for word, some parts of the conversation
between him and the Vanity Lilies as he translated them to me for
dictation at the time. Even so, there are many I am sure who will doubt
the truth of the whole idea: that a man could talk with the flowers. But
with them I am not so concerned. Any one who had followed John Dolittle
through the various stages of animal, fish, and insect languages would
not, I feel certain, find it very strange, when the great man did at
last come in touch with plant life of unusual intelligence, that he
should be able to converse with it.
On looking over my diary of those eventful days the scene of that
occasion comes up visibly before my eyes. It was about an hour before
dusk—that is the slight dimming of the pale daylight which proceeded a
half darkness, the nearest thing to real night we ever saw on the Moon.
The Doctor, as we left the camp, called back over his shoulder to me to
bring an extra note book along as he expected to make a good deal of
progress to-night. I armed myself therefore with three extra books and
followed him out.
Halting about twenty paces in front of the lily beds (we had camped back
several hundred yards from them after they had nearly suffocated
Chee-Chee) the Doctor squatted on the ground and began swaying his head
from side to side. Immediately the lilies began moving their heads in
answer, swinging, nodding, waving, and dipping.
[Illustration: “‘_Are you ready, Stubbins?_’”]
“Are you ready, Stubbins?” asked John Dolittle.
“Yes, Doctor,” said I, making sure my pencil point would last awhile.
“Good,” said he.—“Put it down”:
_The Doctor_—“Do you like this stationary life—I mean, living in the
same place all the time, unable to move?”
_The Lilies_—(Several of them seemed to answer in chorus)—“Why,
yes—of course. Being stationary doesn’t bother us. We hear about all
that is going on.”
_The Doctor_—“From whom, what, do you hear it?”
_The Lilies_—“Well, the other plants, the bees, the birds, bring us
news of what is happening.”
_The Doctor_—“Oh, do you communicate with the bees and the birds?”
_The Lilies_—“Why, certainly, of course!”
_The Doctor_—“Yet the bees and the birds are races different from your
own.”
_The Lilies_—“Quite true, but the bees come to us for honey. And the
birds come to sit among our leaves—especially the warblers—and they
sing and talk and tell us of what is happening in the world. What more
would you want?”
_The Doctor_—“Oh, quite so, quite so. I didn’t mean you should be
discontented. But don’t you ever want to move, to travel?”
_The Lilies_—“Good gracious, no! What’s the use of all this running
about? After all, there’s no place like home—provided it’s a good one.
It’s a pleasant life we lead—and very safe. The folks who rush around
are always having accidents, breaking legs and so forth. Those troubles
can’t happen to us. We sit still and watch the world go by. We chat
sometimes among ourselves and then there is always the gossip of the
birds and the bees to entertain us.”
_The Doctor_—“And you really understand the language of the birds and
bees!—You astonish me.”
_The Lilies_—“Oh, perfectly—and of the beetles and moths too.”
[Illustration: “_He struck a light_”]
It was at about this point in our first recorded conversation that we
made the astonishing discovery that the Vanity Lilies could _see_. The
light, as I have told you, was always somewhat dim on the Moon. The
Doctor, while he was talking, suddenly decided he would like a smoke. He
asked the lilies if they objected to the fumes of tobacco. They said
they did not know because they had never had any experience of it. So
the Doctor said he would light his pipe and if they did not like it he
would stop.
So taking a box of matches from his pocket he struck a light. We had not
fully realized before how soft and gentle was the light of the Moon
until that match flared up. It is true that in testing our woods for
smoke fuel we had made much larger blazes. But then, I suppose we had
been more intent on the results of our experiments than on anything
else. Now, as we noticed the lilies suddenly draw back their heads and
turn aside from the flare, we saw that the extra illumination of a mere
match had made a big difference to the ordinary daylight they were
accustomed to.
THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER
Mirrors for Flowers
When the Doctor noticed how the lilies shrank away from the glow of the
matches he became greatly interested in this curious unexpected effect
that the extra light had had on them.
“Why, Stubbins,” he whispered, “they could not have felt the heat. We
were too far away. If it is the glare that made them draw back it must
be that they have some organs so sensitive to light that quite possibly
_they can see_! I must find out about this.”