Hugh Lofting

“ But every once in a while huge gray-black waves would arise from under the ship’s side like nightmare monsters, swell and climb, then crash down upon us, pressing us into the sea; and the poor Curlew would come to a standstill, half under water, like a gasping, drowning pig.
While I was clambering along towards the wheel to see the Doctor, clinging like a leech with hands and legs to the rails lest I be blown overboard, one of these tremendous seas tore loose my hold, filled my throat with water and swept me like a cork the full length of the deck. ”

“ And they stood on the rail of the ship, like round-shouldered soldiers all in a row, stern and still and stiff; while their great, gleaming, black eyes shot darting glances here and there and everywhere.
Gub-Gub was scared of them and got behind a barrel. He said he felt as though those terrible eyes were looking right inside of him to see what he had stolen for lunch.
And the Doctor said to the eagles,
“A man has been lost—a fisherman with red hair and an anchor marked on his arm. Would you be so kind as to see if you can find him for us? This boy is the man’s nephew.” ”

“ Standing on the top of the hill with Jip and the piffilosaurus at his side, the Doctor gazed down over the wide bowl full of contented animal life and heaved a sigh.
"This beautiful land could also have been called the 'Animals' Paradise,'" he murmured. "Long may they enjoy it to themselves! May this, indeed, be No-Man's-Land forever!"
"You, Doctor," said the deep voice of the piffilosaurus at his elbow, "are the first human in a thousand years that has set foot here. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I thought the echoes of it would never die away as it passed rumbling through the whole island, jangling among the lower valleys, booming in the distant sea-caves.
Suddenly I saw the old man point upward, to the highest mountain in the island; and looking over my shoulder, I was just in time to see the Hanging Stone topple slowly out of sight—down into the heart of the volcano.
"See ye, Men of the Moving Land!" the old man cried: "The stone has fallen and our legend has come true: the King of Kings is crowned this day!" ”

“ Soon the front end of the ship began to go down and down, faster and faster—till the boat looked almost as though it were standing on its head; and the pirates had to cling to the rails and the masts and the ropes and anything to keep from sliding off. Then the sea rushed roaring in through all the windows and the doors. And at last the ship plunged right down to the bottom of the sea, making a dreadful gurgling sound; and the six bad men were left bobbing about in the deep water of the bay. ”

“ In the dim light hundreds, perhaps thousands, of gigantic insects, all invalids, stood about our camp staring at the tiny human physician who had come so far to cure their ailments. Some of these creatures we had not so far seen and never even suspected their presence on the Moon: caterpillars as long as a village street with gout in a dozen feet; immense beetles suffering from an affliction of the eyes; grasshoppers as tall as a three-storey house with crude bandages on their gawky joints; enormous birds with a wing held painfully in an odd position. ”

“ The Doctor, his face tense with anxiety, sat down in the throne again still watching the blue water of the ocean with staring eyes.
Soon we felt the island slowly sinking beneath us. We saw the sea creep inland over the beaches as the shores went down—one foot, three feet, ten feet, twenty, fifty, a hundred. And then, thank goodness, gently as a butterfly alighting on a rose, it stopped! Spidermonkey Island had come to rest on the sandy bottom of the Atlantic, and earth was joined to earth once more. ”

“ When the animals and the little boy saw the Doctor and Jip coming back to the ship with a red-headed man, they began to cheer and yell and dance about the boat. And the swallows up above started whistling at the top of their voices—thousands and millions of them—to show that they too were glad that the boy's brave uncle had been found. The noise they made was so great that sailors far out at sea thought that a terrible storm was coming. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is far better that we abide the white man's promise and see what comes. He is a man of deeds, not words. Did he not put the Amazons to flight with a magic mouse that lives in his pocket? Let us side with the white man and the venerable Nyam-Nyam, who has ruled us with kindness for so long. Obombo would but lead us into war, and bring us to greater poverty still."
Soon hisses and groans broke out among the crowd and, picking up pebbles and mud, they began pelting Obombo so he could not go on with his speech. Finally he had to run for the jungle himself to escape the fury of the people. ”

“ Then I fear we must await the morrow; for besides the different woods, we need an old squirrel’s nest for fuel—And that without lamps you could not find in your forests at this hour.”
“Great are your cunning and your skill, oh White Man,” Long Arrow replied. “But in this you do us an injustice. Know you not that all fireless peoples can see in the dark? Having no lamps we are forced to train ourselves to travel through the blackest night, lightless. I will despatch a messenger and you shall have your squirrel’s nest within the hour.” ”

“ If you will turn me white, so that I may go back to The Sleeping Beauty, I will give you half my kingdom and anything besides you ask."
"Prince Bumpo," said the Doctor, looking thoughtfully at the bottles in his medicine-bag, "supposing I made your hair a nice blonde color—would not that do instead to make you happy?"
"No," said Bumpo. "Nothing else will satisfy me. I must be a white prince."
"You know it is very hard to change the color of a prince," said the Doctor—"one of the hardest things a magician can do. You only want your face white, do you not?" ”

“ Last of all, the birds brought seeds: grass seeds, the seeds of flowers, acorns and the kernels of palms. The turtle's new home was to be provided with turf, with wild gardens, with shady avenues to keep off the African sun.
When Speedy came to the hummock and said, "Doctor, it is finished," Mudface gazed thoughtfully out into the lake and murmured:
"Now proud Shalba is buried indeed: she has an island for a tombstone! It's a grand home you have given me, John Dolittle.—Alas, poor Shalba!—Mashtu the king passes. But Mudface the turtle—lives on!" ”

“ Stealthily creeping up the sands till she could get behind the cover of some bushes before she took to her wings, Polynesia went off in the direction of the town; while I remained alone upon the shore fascinatedly watching this unbelievable monster wallowing in the shallow sea.
It moved very little. From time to time it lifted its head out of the water showing its enormously long neck and horns. Occasionally it would try and draw itself up, the way a snail does when he goes to move, but almost at once it would sink down again as if exhausted. ”

“ I lowered myself down among the deep fur to avoid the pressure of the tearing wind. My groping hands touched something strange. It was the moon-bells. The giant in sending me down to the Earth had thought of the needs of the human. I grabbed one of the big flowers and held it handy to plunge my face in. Bad times were coming, I knew when we must cross the Dead Belt. There was nothing more I could do for the present. I would lie still and take it easy till I reached Puddleby and the little house with the big garden. ”

“ So Gub-Gub went and woke the Doctor who was taking a nap.
"Listen," whispered the parrot, when John Dolittle's face appeared: "Prince Bumpo is coming here to-night to see you. And you've got to find some way to turn him white. But be sure to make him promise you first that he will open the prison-door and find a ship for you to cross the sea in."
"This is all very well," said the Doctor. "But it isn't so easy to turn a black man white. You speak as though he were a dress to be redyed. It's not so simple. 'Shall the leopard change his spots, or the Ethiopian his skin,' you know?" ”

“ All day long a never-ending stream of big birds, a dozen abreast, flew up from the sea and headed across Lake Junganyika. The line was like a solid black ribbon, the birds, dense, packed and close, beak to tail. And as each dozen reached the spot where Speedy hovered, twelve stones dropped into the water. The procession was so continuous and unbroken that it looked as though the sky were raining stones. And the constant roar of them splashing into the water out of the heavens could be heard a mile off.
"A never-ending stream of big birds"
The lake in the centre was quite deep. ”

“ With the growing light it became plain to all of us: a long island with high rocky mountains in the middle and so near to us that you could almost throw your hat upon the shore.
The porpoises gave us one last push and our strange-looking craft bumped gently on a low beach. Then, thanking our lucky stars for a chance to stretch our cramped legs, we all bundled off on to the land—the first land, even though it was floating land, that we had trodden for six weeks. ”

“ Trees that sang; flowers that could see; butterflies and bees that conversed with one another and with the plants on which they fed, watched over by a parent council that guarded the interests of great and small, strong and weak, alike—the whole community presented a world of peace, goodwill and happiness which no words of mine could convey a fair idea of.
“One thing I don’t quite understand,” said the Doctor to the vines, “is how you manage about seeding. Don’t some of the plants throw down too much seed and bring forth a larger crop than is desirable?” ”

“ Presently she laughed aloud.
“What is it, Polynesia?” asked the Doctor, looking up from his book.
“I was just thinking,” said the parrot; and she went on looking at the leaves.
“What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking about people,” said Polynesia. “People make me sick. They think they’re so wonderful. The world has been going on now for thousands of years, hasn’t it? And the only thing in animal-language that people have learned to understand is that when a dog wags his tail he means ‘I’m glad!’—It’s funny, isn’t it? You are the very first man to talk like us. ”

“ So the Emir ordered his hammock men and had himself carried to the Doctor's prison. The door was unlocked and the Emir, going inside, said to the Doctor:
"What monkey business have you done to my pearl fisheries, you white-faced villain?"
"They're not your pearl fisheries, you black-faced ruffian," said the Doctor. "You stole them from poor old Nyam-Nyam. The pearls were fished for by diving birds. But the birds are honest and will work only for honest people. Why don't you have windows in your prisons? You ought to be ashamed of yourself." ”

“ But presently, when the Jabizri was no more than ten feet above our heads, we all cried out together. For, even while we watched him, he had disappeared into the face of the rock like a raindrop soaking into sand.
"He's gone," cried Polynesia. "There must be a hole up there." And in a twinkling she had fluttered up the rock and was clinging to the face of it with her claws. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All these little things put together mean a message—But why give a message to a beetle to carry—and to a Jabizri, the rarest beetle in the world?—What an extraordinary thing!"
Then he fell to muttering over the pictures. "I wonder what it means: men walking up a mountain; men walking into a hole in a mountain; a mountain falling down—it's a good drawing, that; men pointing to their open mouths; bars—prison-bars, perhaps; men praying; men lying down—they look as though they might be sick; and last of all, just a mountain—a peculiar-shaped mountain." ”

“ Polynesia could mimic any one.
The King opened his eyes and said sleepily: "Is that you, Ermintrude?" (He thought it was the Queen come back from the dance.)
Then the parrot coughed again—loud, like a man. And the King sat up, wide awake, and said, "Who's that?"
"I am Doctor Dolittle," said the parrot—just the way the Doctor would have said it.
"What are you doing in my bedroom?" cried the King. "How dare you get out of prison! Where are you?—I don't see you."
"'Who's that?'"
But the parrot just laughed—a long, deep, jolly laugh, like the Doctor's. ”

“ Our world could learn a lot from the Moon, Stubbins—the Moon, its own child whom it presumes to despise! We have no balancing or real protection of life. With us it is, and always has been, ‘dog eat dog.’ ”
The Doctor shook his head and gazed off into space to where the globe of our mother Earth glowed dimly. Just so had I often seen the Moon from Puddleby by daylight. ”

“ I cried—"Whistles!—Why, it's impossible."
"It's a fact," said the Doctor, white in the face with excitement. "It's only a few words, scattered, with no particular sense to them—all mixed up with his own language which I can't make out yet. But they're English words, unless there's something very wrong with my hearing—And the tune he whistles, it's as plain as anything—always the same tune. Now you listen and tell me what you make of it. Tell me everything you hear. Don't miss a word."
I went to the glass tank upon the table while the Doctor grabbed a note-book and a pencil. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As I climbed into the bunk over the Doctor's and pulled the blankets snugly round me, I found I could look out of the port-hole at my elbow, and, without raising my head from the pillow, could see the lights of Penzance swinging gently up and down with the motion of the ship at anchor. It was like being rocked to sleep with a little show going on to amuse you. I was just deciding that I liked the life of the sea very much when I fell fast asleep. ”

“ It seems I have offended you by saying that bullfighting is a poor sport. What is the name of the best matador you have for to-morrow's show?"
"Pepito de Malaga," said Don Enrique, "one of the greatest names, one of the bravest men, in all Spain."
"Very well," said the Doctor, "I have a proposal to make to you. I have never fought a bull in my life. Now supposing I were to go into the ring to-morrow with Pepito de Malaga and any other matadors you choose; and if I can do more tricks with a bull than they can, would you promise to do something for me?" ”

“ But the Doctor and I never got a chance to fly for our lives. We were swept off our feet and knocked down flat by the sheer weight of the mob. And once down, we were unable to get up again. I thought we would surely be trampled to death.
But at that moment, above the din and racket of the battle, we heard the most terrifying noise that ever assaulted human ears: the sound of millions and millions of parrots all screeching with fury together.
The army, which in the nick of time Polynesia had brought to our rescue, darkened the whole sky to the westward. ”

“ Polynesia had indeed thought of everything.
Yet even now we could see the Doctor was still trying to think up further excuses.
"Oh Kindly One," said Long Arrow, "why tempt ill fortune? Your way is clear. Your future and your work beckon you back to your foreign home beyond the sea. With you will go also what lore I too have gathered for mankind—to lands where it will be of wider use than it can ever here. I see the glimmerings of dawn in the eastern heaven. Day is at hand. Go before your subjects are abroad. Go before your project is discovered. ”

“ The cat's-meat-man stopped and leant down to whisper in my ear.
"He talks their language." he said in a hoarse, mysterious voice.
"The animals' language?" I cried.
"Why certainly," said Matthew. "All animals have some kind of a language. Some sorts talk more than others; some only speak in sign-language, like deaf-and-dumb. But the Doctor, he understands them all—birds as well as animals. We keep it a secret though, him and me, because folks only laugh at you when you speak of it. Why, he can even write animal-language. He reads aloud to his pets. ”

“ For I longed always to sail away with those brave ships when they turned their backs on Puddleby Church and went creeping down the river again, across the wide lonely marshes to the sea. I longed to go with them out into the world to seek [4] my fortune in foreign lands—Africa, India, China and Peru! When they got round the bend in the river and the water was hidden from view, you could still see their huge brown sails towering over the roofs of the town, moving onward slowly—like some gentle giants that walked among the houses without noise. ”

“ What if another storm should come and smash up even this poor raft on which I stood?
I went on like this for a while, growing gloomier and gloomier, when suddenly I thought of Polynesia. "You're always safe with the Doctor," she had said. "He gets there. Remember that."
I'm sure I wouldn't have minded so much if he had been here with me. It was this being all alone that made me want to weep. And yet the petrel was alone!—What a baby I was, I told myself, to be scared to the verge of tears just by loneliness! I was quite safe where I was—for the present anyhow. ”

“ Now of course, when I am quite an old man, my memory isn't so good any more. But whenever I am in doubt and have to hesitate and think, I always ask Polynesia, the parrot.
That wonderful bird (she is now nearly two hundred and fifty years old) sits on the top of my desk, usually humming sailor songs to herself, while I write this book. And, as every one who ever met her knows, Polynesia's memory is the most marvelous memory in the world. ”

“ As a matter of fact, Polynesia had been right about the danger we were in. The news of our victory must have spread like lightning through the whole town. For as we came out of the shop and loaded the cab up with our stores, we saw various little knots of angry men hunting round the streets, waving sticks and shouting,
"The Englishmen! Where are those accursed Englishmen who stopped the bullfighting?—Hang them to a lamp-post!—Throw them in the sea! The Englishmen!—We want the Englishmen!" ”

“ But I found Doctor John Dolittle, the famous naturalist, standing on top of a chair, dancing about on one leg like a schoolboy.
"It means he's free!" he cried, "Luke is free!"
"Then he'll be able to come on the voyage with us, won't he?"
But I could not hear his answer; for the whole court-room seemed to be jumping up on chairs like the Doctor. The crowd had suddenly gone crazy. All the people were laughing and calling and waving to Luke to show him how glad they were that he was free. The noise was deafening. ”

“ The palace-gardens covered a square mile and employed a hundred and sixty gardeners.
Even in his dress the poor man was compelled always to be grand and elegant and uncomfortable. The beloved and battered high hat was put away in a closet and only looked at secretly. State robes had to be worn on all occasions. And when the Doctor did once in a while manage to sneak off for a short, natural-history expedition he never dared to wear his old clothes, but had to chase his butterflies with a crown upon his head and a scarlet cloak flying behind him in the wind. ”

“ So we went downstairs into the store-room and Polynesia told us to keep quite still and listen. This we did. And presently we heard from a dark corner of the hold the distinct sound of someone snoring.
"Ah, I thought so," said Polynesia. "It's a man—and a big one. Climb in there, both of you, and haul him out. It sounds as though he were behind that barrel—Gosh! We seem to have brought half of Puddleby with us. Anyone would think we were a penny ferry-boat. Such cheek! Haul him out."
So Bumpo and I lit a lantern and climbed over the stores. ”

“ This was a very peculiar and striking piece of
"Working away with their noses against the end of the island"
scenery. It was like a great vast basin, or circus, in the mountains, and out of the centre of it there rose a table of rock with an ivory chair upon it, All around this the mountains went up like stairs, or theatre-seats, to a great height—except at one narrow end which was open to a view of the sea. You could imagine it a council-place or concert-hall for giants, and the rock table in the centre the stage for performers or the stand for the speaker. ”

“ It was a high, big room. Raised above the floor, against the wall was the Judge's desk; and here the judge was already sitting—an old, handsome man in a marvelous big wig of gray hair and a gown of black. Below him was another wide, long desk at which lawyers in white wigs sat. The whole thing reminded me of a mixture between a church and a school.
"Those twelve men at the side," whispered the Doctor—"those in pews like a choir, they are what is called the jury. It is they who decide whether Luke is guilty—whether he did it or not." ”