Хью Лофтинг: Doctor Dolittle in the Moon

"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."

"'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.

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.

"The roundness of this world was much more easily felt"

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 clamouring around the surgery door could doubt that."

"'You bet they were not!' grunted Polynesia"

"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."

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 centre.

"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!"