Part II Chapter 7 Doctor Dolittle's Garden by Hugh Lofting
THE COLONY OF EXILES
"You can imagine how glad I was to reach real solid ground again. The duck's plump body came to rest in the marshy ground without noise or fuss. It seemed almost as though he had merely flown from one pond to another, instead of crossing those leagues of wild ocean and thousands of miles of land. He just shook himself, grunted and began to look about for something to eat.
"Of course as soon as he moved the cakes of dry English earth that had clung to his feet all the way came off in the wet mud of this foreign land. And poor little me with them. Oh, such a relief! At once I crept out of the hole and swam forth into the cool oozy mud of the lagoon. I was hungry myself. I too bustled around to raise some food.
"But for me the territory was new. The ducks had been there before. It was their winter home. They knew all the grasses, all the shellfish, all the water life fit to eat. But I! I suddenly found myself swimming about in a tropical lagoon full of large strange enemies and small new creatures which might be food or might be poison.
"I swam for hours before I dared act. I was taking no chances after coming through that long journey of danger and adventure. At last I met an insect that looked familiar. I manœuvred about him for a while. The water was kind of muddy, stirred up from the paddling and wading of the ducks. Then I recognized him. It was my friend who had made the journey on the other foot of the same duck. We almost fell on one another's necks.
"Tell me,' I said, 'where can I find something to eat. These waters contain nothing but strange sights for me.'
"He laughed.
"'Why,' said he, 'I've just had the grandest meal of my life—fish eggs in plenty. Come with me. I'll show you.'
"'But what about those dangerous-looking fellows?' I said. 'It seems to me we're surrounded by nothing but enemies.'
"He glanced back at me and chuckled over his shoulder as he led the way.
"'Don't forget that we are just as strange to these fellows here as they are to us,' said he. 'They don't know what to make of us—as yet anyway. They're just as scared of us as you are of them.'
"Now pond life is, as you probably know, a very strenuous business. All kinds of creatures—fish, beetles, worms, salamanders—every species has its enemies. And if you want to live to a ripe old age you've got to look out. And so as I followed my friend, and everything from great pike to ferocious-looking turtles, came up and glowered at us through murky waters, you may be sure I felt far from comfortable.
"But in a little I realized that many of the larger species who in our own waters would not have hesitated to attack us, here were by no means so bold and seemed almost, as my friend had said, to be scared of us.
"After we had had something to eat we crept out of the lagoon on to the muddy bank to take a look around. The ducks were still feeding. All kinds of other water fowl, too, many of which I had never seen before. Some of them were quite curious and beautiful: long-legged fellows like great cranes with scarlet bills and wings; flat-headed smaller kinds like snipe, built for speed with tiny beaks and mincing gait; geese and wild swans of various sorts; and great big-mouthed pelicans that dived for fish with a mighty splash and gobbled up their prey by the bushel.
"It seemed a regular paradise for birds, no sign of human habitation in sight. On one side lagoon after lagoon led outward to the sea; on the other, flat marshland lay between us and the mountains.
"'This,' I said to my friend, 'seems like a very nice place we have come to.'
"'Yes,' he replied. 'I don't think we have done so badly. I wonder if any more of our kind ever came to these parts.'
"'You never can tell,' said I. 'Let's look around and find out.'
"So off we swam together down the lagoon to see if we could find any others of our own kin who had been exiled on these foreign shores.
"After about an hour's search-the lagoon was several miles long and had many lesser lagoons running off it in every direction—we came upon one or two solitary specimens of our own kind. They were very glad to see us and at once asked for news of the home-land. We told them what we could. But the information they could give us was much more important. They had been here some time and had already got acclimatized. Familiar as they were with the dangers and the advantages of the waters, they told us what parts to avoid and where the best feeding was to be found. The temperature of the water was of course, generally speaking, very much higher than that of our native haunts. But they had discovered that by seeking certain very shallow places at night, when the wind regularly blew down from the mountains, cooler territory could always be found. While by day special spots where rocky creeks ran into the lagoon afforded some relief from the tropical heat.
"Well, with these few fellow beetles whom we discovered here (it seems they had probably been imported the same way that we had) we formed a regular little colony. That is, it was little to begin with. But very soon we had large families of young ones growing up and after a few months we felt that we formed quite an important species in the pond life of that region. That, I think, is about all I have to tell you of how I went abroad."
"Oh, but listen," said the Doctor, "you haven't told us yet how you got back here."
"That is quite simple," said the beetle. "I came back by the same means as I went out: on the feet of some water-fowl. Only on the return journey I am not so sure what kind of bird it was that carried me. As soon as I realized I had been returned to England it did not take me long to find my way back to my own particular pond. My case was of course peculiar. I know now that quite a few small water creatures get carried abroad—sometimes in egg-form only—in that same way. But it is exceptionally rare, I fancy, for one individual to get back to the waters that he started from. I was given quite a wonderful reception. The beetles in my native pond turned out to do me honour. And I felt like a great traveller who had done something wonderful."