Hugh Lofting: Doctor Dolittle's Garden

Over that last lap of the descent we took a long time. With the communication–cord constantly in his hand, the Doctor approached the Moon at his own pace. The night–and–day line moved of course very rapidly. Moreover, how much of that was confused with our own movement (we did not descend in a straight line by any means) it is hard to say. This accounts largely for the difference of opinion between John Dolittle and myself as to which side of the surface we actually landed on. Close up, the details of all the moon maps no longer meant much, because those details which we had seen through telescopes as mere fractions of an inch were now become mountains and continents.

I suppose the greatest anxiety in the minds of all of us was water . Would we find it on the Moon? Moon creatures might exist without it: but we must perish if it was not there.

Lower and lower in circles slowly we sank. At first prospects looked very blue. The landscape, or moonscape, immediately beneath us was all, it seemed, volcanoes, old craters and new craters—mile upon mile.

But towards that night–and–day line which showed round the globe we turned hopeful eyes.

I have seen the Doctor enthusiastic many times—when for example he discovered something new in any of his unnumbered branches of natural history research. But I never remember his getting so excited as he did when watching that ever–moving day–and–night line on our slow descent, he suddenly grabbed me by the shoulder. Forgetting for the moment how the moon atmosphere carried sound, he nearly deafened me with with—

"Stubbins, look!—A tree! You see that, way over there at the foot of the mountain? I'll swear it's a tree. And if it is, we're all right. It means water, Stubbins, Water ! And we can manage to exist here.—Water and Life !"

THE END