Chapter 6 Doctor Dolittle in the Moon by Hugh Lofting
THE MOON LAKE
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!"
Then followed a half-hour's discussion, between the Doctor and Polynesia on the one side and Chee-Chee on the other, as to whether the find we had made was, or was not, a canoe. For me, I had no opinion. To my eyes the object looked like an immensely long log, hollowed somewhat on the one side, but whether by accident or design I could not tell.
In any case it was certainly too heavy and cumbersome for us to use. And presently I edged into the argument with the suggestion that we go on further and find materials for a raft or boat we could handle.
The Doctor seemed rather glad of this excuse to end a fruitless controversy, and soon we moved on in search of something which would enable us to explore the waters of the lake. A march of a mile further along the shore brought us to woods that were not so heavy. Here the immense asparagus forests gave way to a growth of smaller girth; and the Doctor's hatchet soon felled enough poles for us to make a raft from. We laced them together with thongs of bark and found them sufficiently buoyant when launched to carry us and our small supply of baggage with ease. Where the water was shallow we used a long pole to punt with; and when we wished to explore greater depths we employed sweeps, or oars, which we fashioned roughly with the hatchet.
From the first moment we were afloat the Doctor kept me busy taking notes for him. In the equipment he had brought with him there was a fine-meshed landing net; and with it he searched along the shores for signs of life in this moon lake, the first of its kind we had met with.
"It is very important, Stubbins," said he, "to find out what fish we have here. In evolution the fish life is a very important matter."
"What is evolution?" asked Chee-Chee.
I started out to explain it to him but was soon called upon by the Doctor to make more notes—for which I was not sorry, as the task turned out to be a long and heavy one. Polynesia, however, took it up where I left off and made short work of it.
"Evolution, Chee-Chee," said she, "is the story of how Tommy got rid of the tail you are carrying—because he didn't need it any more—and the story of how you grew it and kept it because you did need it.... Evolution! Proof!—Professors' talk. A long word for a simple matter."
It turned out that our examination of the lake was neither exciting nor profitable. We brought up all sorts of water-flies, many larvæ of perfectly tremendous size, but we found as yet no fishes. The plant life—water plant I mean—was abundant.
"I think," said the Doctor, after we had poled ourselves around the lake for several hours, "that there can be no doubt now that the Vegetable Kingdom here is much more important than the Animal Kingdom. And what there is of the Animal Kingdom seems to be mostly insect. However, we will camp on the shore of this pleasant lake and perhaps we shall see more later."
So we brought our raft to anchor at about the place from which we had started out and pitched camp on a stretch of clean yellow sand.
I shall never forget that night. It was uncanny. None of us slept well. All through the hours of darkness we heard things moving around us. Enormous things. Yet never did we see them or find out what they were. The four of us were nevertheless certain that all night we were being watched. Even Polynesia was disturbed. There seemed no doubt that there was plenty of animal life in the Moon, but that it did not as yet want to show itself to us. The newness of our surroundings alone was disturbing enough, without this very uncomfortable feeling that something had made the moon folks distrustful of us.