No More Learning

But all along the shore, for
many hours, there was distinctly heard a sound of severely-suppressed sobs,
and of a vague multitude of living creatures using their
pocket-handkerchiefs in a subdued simultaneous snuffle, lingering sadly
along the walloping waves as the boat sailed farther and farther away from
the Land of the Happy Blue-Bottle-Flies.

Nothing particular occurred for some days after these events, except that,
as the travellers were passing a low tract of sand, they perceived an
unusual and gratifying spectacle; namely, a large number of Crabs and
Crawfish--perhaps six or seven hundred--sitting by the water-side, and
endeavoring to disentangle a vast heap of pale pink worsted, which they
moistened at intervals with a fluid composed of lavender-water and
white-wine negus.

"Can we be of any service to you, O crusty Crabbies? " said the four
children.

"Thank you kindly," said the Crabs consecutively. "We are trying to make
some worsted mittens, but do not know how. "

On which Violet, who was perfectly acquainted with the art of
mitten-making, said to the Crabs, "Do your claws unscrew, or are they
fixtures? "

"They are all made to unscrew," said the Crabs; and forthwith they
deposited a great pile of claws close to the boat, with which Violet
uncombed all the pale pink worsted, and then made the loveliest mittens
with it you can imagine. These the Crabs, having resumed and screwed on
their claws, placed cheerfully upon their wrists, and walked away rapidly
on their hind-legs, warbling songs with a silvery voice and in a minor key.

After this, the four little people sailed on again till they came to a vast
and wide plain of astonishing dimensions, on which nothing whatever could
be discovered at first; but, as the travellers walked onward, there
appeared in the extreme and dim distance a single object, which on a nearer
approach, and on an accurately cutaneous inspection, seemed to be somebody
in a large white wig, sitting on an arm-chair made of sponge-cakes and
oyster-shells. "It does not quite look like a human being," said Violet
doubtfully; nor could they make out what it really was, till the
Quangle-Wangle (who had previously been round the world) exclaimed softly
in a loud voice, "It is the co-operative Cauliflower! "

[Illustration]

And so, in truth, it was: and they soon found that what they had taken for
an immense wig was in reality the top of the Cauliflower; and that he had
no feet at all, being able to walk tolerably well with a fluctuating and
graceful movement on a single cabbage-stalk,--an accomplishment which
naturally saved him the expense of stockings and shoes.

Presently, while the whole party from the boat was gazing at him with
mingled affection and disgust, he suddenly arose, and, in a somewhat
plumdomphious manner, hurried off towards the setting sun,--his steps
supported by two superincumbent confidential Cucumbers, and a large number
of Waterwagtails proceeding in advance of him by three and three in a
row,--till he finally disappeared on the brink of the western sky in a
crystal cloud of sudorific sand.

[Illustration]

So remarkable a sight, of course, impressed the four children very deeply;
and they returned immediately to their boat with a strong sense of
undeveloped asthma and a great appetite.

Shortly after this, the travellers were obliged to sail directly below some
high overhanging rocks, from the top of one of which a particularly odious
little boy, dressed in rose-colored knickerbockers, and with a pewter plate
upon his head, threw an enormous pumpkin at the boat, by which it was
instantly upset.
[Illustration]

But this upsetting was of no consequence, because all the party knew how to
swim very well: and, in fact, they preferred swimming about till after the
moon rose; when, the water growing chilly, they sponge-taneously entered
the boat. Meanwhile the Quangle-Wangle threw back the pumpkin with immense
force, so that it hit the rocks where the malicious little boy in
rose-colored knickerbockers was sitting; when, being quite full of
lucifer-matches, the pumpkin exploded surreptitiously into a thousand bits;
whereon the rocks instantly took fire, and the odious little boy became
unpleasantly hotter and hotter and hotter, till his knickerbockers were
turned quite green, and his nose was burnt off.

Two or three days after this had happened, they came to another place,
where they found nothing at all except some wide and deep pits full of
mulberry-jam. This is the property of the tiny, yellow-nosed Apes who
abound in these districts, and who store up the mulberry-jam for their food
in winter, when they mix it with pellucid pale periwinkle-soup, and serve
it out in wedgewood china-bowls, which grow freely all over that part of
the country. Only one of the yellow-nosed Apes was on the spot, and he was
fast asleep; yet the four travellers and the Quangle-Wangle and Pussy were
so terrified by the violence and sanguinary sound of his snoring, that they
merely took a small cupful of the jam, and returned to re-embark in their
boat without delay.

What was their horror on seeing the boat (including the churn and the
tea-kettle) in the mouth of an enormous Seeze Pyder, an aquatic and
ferocious creature truly dreadful to behold, and, happily, only met with in
those excessive longitudes! In a moment, the beautiful boat was bitten into
fifty-five thousand million hundred billion bits; and it instantly became
quite clear that Violet, Slingsby, Guy, and Lionel could no longer
preliminate their voyage by sea.

The four travellers were therefore obliged to resolve on pursuing their
wanderings by land: and, very fortunately, there happened to pass by at
that moment an elderly Rhinoceros, on which they seized; and, all four
mounting on his back,--the Quangle-Wangle sitting on his horn, and holding
on by his ears, and the Pussy-Cat swinging at the end of his tail,--they
set off, having only four small beans and three pounds of mashed potatoes
to last through their whole journey.

[Illustration]

They were, however, able to catch numbers of the chickens and turkeys and
other birds who incessantly alighted on the head of the Rhinoceros for the
purpose of gathering the seeds of the rhododendron-plants which grew
there; and these creatures they cooked in the most translucent and
satisfactory manner by means of a fire lighted on the end of the
Rhinoceros's back. A crowd of Kangaroos and gigantic Cranes accompanied
them, from feelings of curiosity and complacency; so that they were never
at a loss for company, and went onward, as it were, in a sort of profuse
and triumphant procession.

Thus in less than eighteen weeks they all arrived safely at home, where
they were received by their admiring relatives with joy tempered with
contempt, and where they finally resolved to carry out the rest of their
travelling-plans at some more favorable opportunity.

As for the Rhinoceros, in token of their grateful adherence, they had him
killed and stuffed directly, and then set him up outside the door of their
father's house as a diaphanous doorscraper.

[Illustration]




THE HISTORY OF THE SEVEN FAMILIES OF
THE LAKE PIPPLE-POPPLE.


CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

In former days,--that is to say, once upon a time,--there lived in the Land
of Gramble-Blamble seven families.