Chapter 5 Doctor Dolittle in the Moon by Hugh Lofting
ON THE PLATEAU
Indeed our first close acquaintance with the forests of the Moon was made in quite a dramatic manner. If it had been on a stage it could not have been arranged better for effect. Suddenly as our heads topped the bluff we saw a wall of jungle some mile or so ahead of us. It would take a very long time to describe those trees in detail. It wasn't that there were so many kinds but each one was so utterly different from any tree we had seen on the Earth. And yet, curiously enough, they did remind you of vegetable forms you had seen, but not of trees.
For instance, there was one whole section, several square miles in extent apparently, that looked exactly like ferns. Another reminded me of a certain flowering plant (I can't recall the name of it) which grows a vast number of small blossoms on a flat surface at the top. The stems are a curious whitish green. This moon tree was exactly the same, only nearly a thousand times as big. The denseness of the foliage (or flowering) at the top was so compact and solid that we later found no rain could penetrate it. And for this reason the Doctor and I gave it the name of the Umbrella Tree. But not one single tree was there which was the same as any tree we had seen before. And there were many, many more curious growths that dimly reminded you of something, though you could not always say exactly what.
One odd thing that disturbed us quite a little was a strange sound. Noises of any kind, no matter how faint, we already knew could travel long distances on the Moon. As soon as we had gained the plateau on top of the bluff we heard it. It was a musical sound. And yet not the sound of a single instrument. It seemed almost as though there was a small orchestra somewhere playing very, very softly. We were by this time becoming accustomed to strange things. But I must confess that this distant hidden music upset me quite a little, and so, I know, it did the Doctor.
At the top of the bluff we rested to get our wind before we covered the last mile up to the jungle itself. It was curious how clearly marked and separated were those sections of the Moon's landscape. And yet doubtless the smaller scale of all the geographical features of this world, so much less in bulk than our own, could partly account for that. In front of us a plateau stretched out, composed of hard sand, level and smooth as a lake, bounded in front by the jungle and to the rear of us by the cliff we had just scaled. I wondered as I looked across at the forest what scenery began on the other side of the woods and if it broke off in as sharp a change as it did here.
As the most important thing to attend to first was the establishment of a water supply, Chee-Chee was asked to act as guide. The monkey set out ahead of us to follow his own tracks which he had made last night. This he had little difficulty in doing across the open plateau. But when we reached the edge of the forest it was not so easy. Much of his travelling here had been done by swinging through the trees. He always felt safer so, he said, while explaining to us how he had been guided to the water by the sense of smell. Again I realized how lucky we had been to have him with us. No one but a monkey could have found his way through that dense, dimly lit forest to water. He asked us to stay behind a moment on the edge of the woods while he went forward to make sure that he could retrace his steps. We sat down again and waited.
"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."
"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.
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."
"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."