Chapter 16 Doctor Dolittle in the Moon by Hugh Lofting
MONKEY MEMORIES OF THE MOON
It was when we were on our way to visit still another new kind of plant that the subject of the Moon's early history came up again in conversation. The Doctor had heard of a "whispering vine" which used, as a method of conversation, the rattling or whispering of its leaves.
"Do you remember, Chee-Chee," the Doctor asked, "if your grandmother ever spoke, in her stories of very ancient times, of any peculiar or extraordinary plants or trees?"
"I don't think so, Doctor," he replied. "My grandmother in her talks of the Time Before There Was a Moon kept pretty much to animals and people. She hardly ever mentioned the trees or vegetable world, except to say of this country or that, that it was heavily wooded, or bare and desert. Why?"
"Well, of course in my mind there is no doubt that the Moon was once a part of the Earth, as many scientists believe. And if so I am wondering why we do not see more plants and trees of our own home kinds here."
"Well, but we have, Doctor," said Polynesia. "How about the Asparagus Forests?"
"Quite so," said the Doctor. "There have been many that reminded one of earthly species in their shapes, even if they have grown into giants here. But this speech among plants and trees—and other evidences of social advance and development in the Vegetable Kingdom—is something so established and accepted here I am all the time wondering if something like it had not started on the Earth long ago—say in the Days Before There Was a Moon. And it was merely because our naturalists were not quick enough to—er—catch on to it, that we supposed there was no means of communication among flowers and trees."
"Let me think," said Chee-Chee, and he held his forehead tightly with both hands.
"No," he said after a while, "I don't recall my grandmother's speaking of things like that at all. I remember in her story of Otho Bludge, the prehistoric artist, that she told us about certain woods he used to make handles for his flint chisels and other tools and household implements. She described the wood, for instance, that he used to make bowls out of for carrying water in. But she never spoke of trees and plants that could talk."
It was about midday and we had halted for lunch on our excursion in search of the Whispering Vines we had been told of. We were not more than two or three hours' walk from our old base camp. But that, with the speed so easy in moon marching, means a much greater distance than it does on the Earth. From this camp where the Doctor had set up his apparatus for his special botanical studies, we had now for nearly a week been making daily expeditions in search of the various new species that the Vanity Lilies had described for us. But we always got back before nightfall. Well, this noon the Doctor was leaning back, munching a large piece of yellow yam—a vegetable we got from the edges of the jungle and which we had found so nourishing we had made it almost our chief article of diet.
"Tell me, Chee-Chee," said he: "what was the end of that story about Otho Bludge the prehistoric artist? It was a most fascinating tale."
"Well, I think I have told you," said Chee-Chee, "pretty nearly all there was to tell. In the Days Before There Was a Moon, as Grandmother always began, Otho Bludge was a man alone, a man apart. Making pictures on horn and bone with a stone knife, that was his hobby. His great ambition was to make a picture of Man. But there was no one to draw from, for Otho Bludge was a man alone. One day, when he wished aloud for some one to make a picture from, he saw this beautiful girl—Pippiteepa was her name—kneeling on a rock waiting for him to make a portrait of her. He made it—the best work he ever did, carved into the flat of a reindeer's antler. About her right ankle she wore a string of blue stone beads. When the picture was finished she started to disappear again into the mountains' evening mist, as mysteriously as she had come. Otho called to her to stay. She was the only human being he had ever seen besides his own image in the pools. He wanted her company, poor Otho Bludge, the carver of horn, the man apart. But even as she passed into the twilight for ever she cried out to him that she could not stay—for she was of the Fairy Folk and not of his kin. He rushed to the rock where she had knelt; but all he found was the string of blue stone beads which she had worn about her ankle. Otho, broken-hearted, took them and bound them on his own wrist where he wore them night and day, hoping always that she would come back.
"There is nothing more. We youngsters used to pester my grandmother for a continuance of the tale. It seemed so sad, so unsatisfying, an ending. But the old lady insisted that that was the end. Not long after apparently Otho Bludge, the carver of horn and the man apart, just disappeared, completely, as though the Earth had swallowed him up."
"Humph!" muttered the Doctor. "Have you any idea when?"
"No," said the monkey. "You see, even my grandmother's ideas of time and place in these stories she told us were very hazy. She had only had them handed down to her by her parents and grandparents, just as she passed them on to us. But I am pretty sure it was around the time of the Great Flood. Grandmother used to divide her stories into two periods: those belonging to the Days Before There Was a Moon and those that happened after. The name of Otho Bludge the artist only came into those before."
"I see," said the Doctor thoughtfully. "But tell me: can you recall anything your grandmother said about the time of the change—I mean, when the one period left off and the other began?"
"Not a very great deal," said Chee-Chee. "It was the same when we questioned her about the Flood. That that event had taken place, there was no doubt; but, except for a few details, very little seemed to have been handed down as to how it came about, or of what was going on on the Earth at the time, or immediately after it. I imagine they were both great catastrophes—perhaps both came together—and such confusion fell upon all creatures that they were far too busy to take notes, and too scattered afterwards to keep a very clear picture in their minds. But I do remember that my grandmother said the first night when the Moon appeared in the sky some of our monkey ancestors saw a group of men kneeling on a mountain-top worshipping it. They had always been sun-worshippers and were now offering up prayers to the Moon also, saying it must be the Sun's Wife,"
"But," asked the Doctor, "did not Man know that the Moon must have flown off from the Earth?"
"That is not very clear," said Chee-Chee. "We often questioned my grandmother on this point. But there were certainly some awful big gaps in her information. It was like a history put together from odd bits that had been seen from different sides of the Earth and filled in by gossip and hearsay generations after. It seems that to begin with the confusion was terrible. Darkness covered the Earth, the noise of a terrible explosion followed and there was great loss of life. Then the sea rushed into the hole that had been made, causing more havoc and destruction still. Man and beast slunk into caves for shelter or ran wild across the mountains, or just lay down and covered their eyes to shut out the dreadful vision. From what Monkey History has to relate, none lived who had actually seen the thing take place. But that I have always doubted. And much later there was a regular war among mankind when human society had pulled itself together again sufficiently to get back to something like the old order."
"What was the war about?" asked the Doctor.
"Well, by that time," said Chee-Chee, "Man had multiplied considerably and there were big cities everywhere. The war was over the question: Was the Moon a goddess, or was she not? The old sun-worshippers said she was the wife or daughter of the Sun and was therefore entitled to adoration. Those who said the Moon had flown off from the flanks of the Earth had given up worshipping the Sun. They held that if the Earth had the power to shoot off another world like that, that it should be adored, as the Mother Earth from which we got everything, and not the Sun. They said it showed the Earth was the centre of all things, since the Sun had never shot off children. Then there were others who said that the Sun and the new Earth should be adored as gods—and yet others that wanted all three, Sun and Earth and Moon, to form a great triangle of Almighty Power. The war was a terrible one, men killing one another in thousands—greatly to the astonishment of the Monkey People. For to us it did not seem that any of the various parties really knew anything for certain about the whole business."
"Dear, dear," the Doctor muttered as Chee-Chee ended. "The first religious strife-the first of so many. What a pity!—Just as though it mattered to any one what his neighbour believed so long as he himself led a sincere and useful life and was happy!"