The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle

by Hugh Lofting

  Then they went outside and looked at the great stone we had throwndown, big as a meadow; and they walked round and round it, pointing tothe break running through the middle and wondering how the trick offelling it was done.

  Travelers who have since visited Spidermonkey Island tell me thatthat huge stone slab is now one of the regular sights of the island.And that the Indian guides, when showing it to visitors, always tell_their_ story of how it came there. They say that when the Doctorfound that the rocks had entrapped his friend, Long Arrow, he was soangry that he ripped the mountain in halves with his bare hands and lethim out.

  _THE SECOND CHAPTER_

  “THE MEN OF THE MOVING LAND”

  FROM that time on the Indians’ treatment of us was very different. Wewere invited to their village for a feast to celebrate the recoveryof the lost families. And after we had made a litter from saplings tocarry the sick woman in, we all started off down the mountain.

  On the way the Indians told Long Arrow something which appeared tobe sad news, for on hearing it, his face grew very grave. The Doctorasked him what was wrong. And Long Arrow said he had just been informedthat the chief of the tribe, an old man of eighty, had died early thatmorning.

  “That,” Polynesia whispered in my ear, “must have been what they wentback to the village for, when the messenger fetched them from thebeach.—Remember?”

  “What did he die of?” asked the Doctor.

  “He died of cold,” said Long Arrow.

  Indeed, now that the sun was setting, we were all shivering ourselves.

  “This is a serious thing,” said the Doctor to me. “The island is stillin the grip of that wretched current flowing southward. We will have tolook into this to-morrow. If nothing can be done about it, the Indianshad better take to canoes and leave the island. The chance of beingwrecked will be better than getting frozen to death in the ice-floes ofthe Antarctic.”

  Presently we came over a saddle in the hills, and looking downward onthe far side of the island, we saw the village—a large cluster of grasshuts and gaily colored totem-poles close by the edge of the sea.

  “How artistic!” said the Doctor—“Delightfully situated. What is thename of the village?”

  “Popsipetel,” said Long Arrow. “That is the name also of the tribe. Theword signifies in Indian tongue, _The Men of The Moving Land_. Thereare two tribes of Indians on the island: the Popsipetels at this endand the Bag-jagderags at the other.”

  “Which is the larger of the two peoples?”

  “The Bag-jagderags, by far. Their city covers two square leagues. But,”added Long Arrow a slight frown darkening his handsome face, “for me, Iwould rather have one Popsipetel than a hundred Bag-jagderags.”

  The news of the rescue we had made had evidently gone ahead of us. Foras we drew nearer to the village we saw crowds of Indians streaming outto greet the friends and relatives whom they had never thought to seeagain.

  These good people, when they too were told how the rescue had been thework of the strange white visitor to their shores, all gathered roundthe Doctor, shook him by the hands, patted him and hugged him. Thenthey lifted him up upon their strong shoulders and carried him down thehill into the village.

  There the welcome we received was even more wonderful. In spite ofthe cold air of the coming night, the villagers, who had all beenshivering within their houses, threw open their doors and came out inhundreds. I had no idea that the little village could hold so many.They thronged about us, smiling and nodding and waving their hands;and as the details of what we had done were recited by Long Arrow theykept shouting strange singing noises, which we supposed were words ofgratitude or praise.

  We were next escorted to a brand-new grass house, clean andsweet-smelling within, and informed that it was ours. Six strong Indianboys were told off to be our servants.

  On our way through the village we noticed a house, larger than therest, standing at the end of the main street. Long Arrow pointed to itand told us it was the Chief’s house, but that it was now empty—no newchief having yet been elected to take the place of the old one who haddied.

  Inside our new home a feast of fish and fruit had been prepared. Mostof the more important men of the tribe were already seating themselvesat the long dining-table when we got there. Long Arrow invited us tosit down and eat.

  This we were glad enough to do, as we were all hungry. But we were bothsurprised and disappointed when we found that the fish had not beencooked. The Indians did not seem to think this extraordinary in theleast, but went ahead gobbling the fish with much relish the way itwas, raw.

  With many apologies, the Doctor explained to Long Arrow that if theyhad no objection we would prefer our fish cooked.

  Imagine our astonishment when we found that the great Long Arrow, solearned in the natural sciences, did not know what the word _cooked_meant!

  Polynesia who was sitting on the bench between John Dolittle and myselfpulled the Doctor by the sleeve.

  “I’ll tell you what’s wrong, Doctor,” she whispered as he leant down tolisten to her: “_these people have no fires_! They don’t know how tomake a fire. Look outside: It’s almost dark, and there isn’t a lightshowing in the whole village. This is a fireless people.”

  _THE THIRD CHAPTER_

  FIRE

  THEN the Doctor asked Long Arrow if he knew what fire was, explainingit to him by pictures drawn on the buckskin table-cloth. Long Arrowsaid he had seen such a thing—coming out of the tops of volcanoes; butthat neither he nor any of the Popsipetels knew how it was made.

  “Poor perishing heathens!” muttered Bumpo. “No wonder the old chiefdied of cold!”

  At that moment we heard a crying sound at the door. And turning round,we saw a weeping Indian mother with a baby in her arms. She saidsomething to the Indians which we could not understand; and Long Arrowtold us the baby was sick and she wanted the white doctor to try andcure it.

  “Oh Lord!” groaned Polynesia in my ear—“Just like Puddleby: patientsarriving in the middle of dinner. Well, one thing: the food’s raw, sonothing can get cold anyway.”

  The Doctor examined the baby and found at once that it was thoroughlychilled.

  “Fire—_fire_! That’s what it needs,” he said turning to LongArrow—“That’s what you all need. This child will have pneumonia if itisn’t kept warm.”

  “Aye, truly. But how to make a fire,” said Long Arrow—“where to get it:that is the difficulty. All the volcanoes in this land are dead.”

  Then we fell to hunting through our pockets to see if any matches hadsurvived the shipwreck. The best we could muster were two whole onesand a half—all with the heads soaked off them by salt water.

  “Hark, Long Arrow,” said the Doctor: “divers ways there be of makingfire without the aid of matches. One: with a strong glass and therays of the sun. That however, since the sun has set, we cannot nowemploy. Another is by grinding a hard stick into a soft log—Is thedaylight gone without?—Alas yes. Then I fear we must await the morrow;for besides the different woods, we need an old squirrel’s nest forfuel—And that without lamps you could not find in your forests at thishour.”

  “Great are your cunning and your skill, oh White Man,” Long Arrowreplied. “But in this you do us an injustice. Know you not that allfireless peoples can see in the dark? Having no lamps we are forced totrain ourselves to travel through the blackest night, lightless. I willdespatch a messenger and you shall have your squirrel’s nest within thehour.”

  He gave an order to two of our boy-servants who promptly disappearedrunning. And sure enough, in a very short space of time a squirrel’snest, together with hard and soft woods, was brought to our door.

  The moon had not yet risen and within the house it was practicallypitch-black. I could feel and hear, however, that the Indians weremoving about comfortably as though it were daylight. The task of makingfire the Doctor had to perform almost entirely by the sense of touch,asking Long Arrow and the Indians to hand him his tools when he mislaidthe
m in the dark. And then I made a curious discovery: now that I hadto, I found that I was beginning to see a little in the dark myself.And for the first time I realized that of course there _is_ no suchthing as pitch-dark, so long as you have a door open or a sky above you.

  Calling for the loan of a bow, the Doctor loosened the string, put thehard stick into a loop and began grinding this stick into the soft woodof the log. Soon I smelt that the log was smoking. Then he kept feedingthe part that was smoking with the inside lining of the squirrel’snest, and he asked me to blow upon it with my breath. He made the stickdrill faster and faster. More smoke filled the room. And at last thedarkness about us was suddenly lit up. The squirrel’s nest had burstinto flame.

  The Indians murmured and grunted with astonishment. At first they wereall for falling on their knees and worshiping the fire. Then theywanted to pick it up with their bare hands and play with it. We had toteach them how it was to be used; and they were quite fascinated whenwe laid our fish across it on sticks and cooked it. They sniffed theair with relish as, for the first time in history, the smell of friedfish passed through the village of Popsipetel.

  Then we got them to bring us piles and stacks of dry wood; and we madean enormous bonfire in the middle of the main street. Round this, whenthey felt its warmth, the whole tribe gathered and smiled and wondered.It was a striking sight, one of the pictures from our voyages that Imost frequently remember: that roaring jolly blaze beneath the blacknight sky, and all about it a vast ring of Indians, the firelightgleaming on bronze cheeks, white teeth and flashing eyes—a whole towntrying to get warm, giggling and pushing like school-children.

  In a little, when we had got them more used to the handling of fire,the Doctor showed them how it could be taken into their houses if ahole were only made in the roof to let the smoke out. And before weturned in after that long, long, tiring day, we had fires going inevery hut in the village.

  The poor people were so glad to get really warm again that we thoughtthey’d never go to bed. Well on into the early hours of the morningthe little town fairly buzzed with a great low murmur: the Popsipetelssitting up talking of their wonderful pale-faced visitor and thisstrange good thing he had brought with him—_fire_!

  _THE FOURTH CHAPTER_

  WHAT MAKES AN ISLAND FLOAT

  VERY early in our experience of Popsipetel kindness we saw that if wewere to get anything done at all, we would almost always have to do itsecretly. The Doctor was so popular and loved by all that as soon as heshowed his face at his door in the morning crowds of admirers, waitingpatiently outside, flocked about him and followed him wherever he went.After his fire-making feat, this childlike people expected him, Ithink, to be continually doing magic; and they were determined not tomiss a trick.

  It was only with great difficulty that we escaped from the crowd thefirst morning and set out with Long Arrow to explore the island at ourleisure.

  In the interior we found that not only the plants and trees weresuffering from the cold: the animal life was in even worse straits.Everywhere shivering birds were to be seen, their feathers all fluffedout, gathering together for flight to summer lands. And many lay deadupon the ground. Going down to the shore, we watched land-crabs inlarge numbers taking to the sea to find some better home. While away tothe Southeast we could see many icebergs floating—a sign that we werenow not far from the terrible region of the Antarctic.

  As we were looking out to sea, we noticed our friends the porpoisesjumping through the waves. The Doctor hailed them and they came inshore.

  He asked them how far we were from the South Polar Continent.

  About a hundred miles, they told him. And then they asked why he wantedto know.

  “Because this floating island we are on,” said he, “is driftingsouthward all the time in a current. It’s an island that ordinarilybelongs somewhere in the tropic zone—real sultry weather, sunstrokesand all that. If it doesn’t stop going southward pretty soon everythingon it is going to perish.”

  “Well,” said the porpoises, “then the thing to do is to get it backinto a warmer climate, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but how?” said the Doctor. “We can’t _row_ it back.”

  “No,” said they, “but whales could push it—if you only got enough ofthem.”

  “What a splendid idea!—Whales, the very thing!” said the Doctor. “Doyou think you could get me some?”

  “Why, certainly,” said the porpoises, “we passed one herd of them outthere, sporting about among the icebergs. We’ll ask them to come over.And if they aren’t enough, we’ll try and hunt up some more. Better haveplenty.”

  “Thank you,” said the Doctor. “You are very kind—By the way, do youhappen to know how this island came to be a floating island? At leasthalf of it, I notice, is made of stone. It is very odd that it floatsat all, isn’t it?”

  “It is unusual,” they said. “But the explanation is quite simple. Itused to be a mountainous part of South America—an overhanging part—sortof an awkward corner, you might say. Way back in the glacial days,thousands of years ago, it broke off from the mainland; and by somecurious accident the inside of it, which is hollow, got filled withair as it fell into the ocean. You can only see less than half ofthe island: the bigger half is under water. And in the middle of it,underneath, is a huge rock air-chamber, running right up inside themountains. And that’s what keeps it floating.”

  “What a pecurious phenometer!” said Bumpo.

  “It is indeed,” said the Doctor. “I must make a note of that.” And outcame the everlasting note-book.

  The porpoises went bounding off towards the icebergs. And not longafter, we saw the sea heaving and frothing as a big herd of whales cametowards us at full speed.

  They certainly were enormous creatures; and there must have been a goodtwo hundred of them.

  “Here they are,” said the porpoises, poking their heads out of thewater.

  “Good!” said the Doctor. “Now just explain to them, will you please?that this is a very serious matter for all the living creatures in thisland. And ask them if they will be so good as to go down to the far endof the island, put their noses against it and push it back near thecoast of Southern Brazil.”

  The porpoises evidently succeeded in persuading the whales to do as theDoctor asked; for presently we saw them thrashing through the seas,going off towards the south end of the island.

  Then we lay down upon the beach and waited.

  After about an hour the Doctor got up and threw a stick into the water.For a while this floated motionless. But soon we saw it begin to movegently down the coast.

  “Ah!” said the Doctor, “see that?—The island is going North at last.Thank goodness!”

  Faster and faster we left the stick behind; and smaller and dimmer grewthe icebergs on the skyline.

  The Doctor took out his watch, threw more sticks into the water andmade a rapid calculation.

  “Humph!—Fourteen and a half knots an hour,” he murmured—“A very nicespeed. It should take us about five days to get back near Brazil. Well,that’s that—Quite a load off my mind. I declare I feel warmer already.Let’s go and get something to eat.”

  _THE FIFTH CHAPTER_

  WAR!

  ON our way back to the village the Doctor began discussing naturalhistory with Long Arrow. But their most interesting talk, mainly aboutplants, had hardly begun when an Indian runner came dashing up to uswith a message.

  Long Arrow listened gravely to the breathless, babbled words, thenturned to the Doctor and said in eagle tongue,

  “Great White Man, an evil thing has befallen the Popsipetels. Ourneighbors to the southward, the thievish Bag-jagderags, who for so longhave cast envious eyes on our stores of ripe corn, have gone upon thewar-path; and even now are advancing to attack us.”

  “Evil news indeed,” said the Doctor. “Yet let us not judge harshly.Perhaps it is that they are desperate for food, having their own cropsfrost-killed before harvest. For are they not even nearer the coldSout
h than you?”

  “Make no excuses for any man of the tribe of the Bag-jagderags,” saidLong Arrow shaking his head. “They are an idle shiftless race. They dobut see a chance to get corn without the labor of husbandry. If itwere not that they are a much bigger tribe and hope to defeat theirneighbor by sheer force of numbers, they would not have dared to makeopen war upon the brave Popsipetels.”

  When we reached the village we found it in a great state of excitement.Everywhere men were seen putting their bows in order, sharpeningspears, grinding battle-axes and making arrows by the hundred. Womenwere raising a high fence of bamboo poles all round the village. Scoutsand messengers kept coming and going, bringing news of the movements ofthe enemy. While high up in the trees and hills about the village wecould see look-outs watching the mountains to the southward.

  Long Arrow brought another Indian, short but enormously broad, andintroduced him to the Doctor as Big Teeth, the chief warrior of thePopsipetels.

  The Doctor volunteered to go and see the enemy and try to argue thematter out peacefully with them instead of fighting; for war, he said,was at best a stupid wasteful business. But the two shook their heads.Such a plan was hopeless, they said. In the last war when they had senta messenger to do peaceful arguing, the enemy had merely hit him withan ax.

  While the Doctor was asking Big Teeth how he meant to defend thevillage against attack, a cry of alarm was raised by the look-outs.

  “They’re coming!—The Bag-jagderags—swarming down the mountains inthousands!”

  “Well,” said the Doctor, “it’s all in the day’s work, I suppose. Idon’t believe in war; but if the village is attacked we must helpdefend it.”