The Story of Doctor Dolittle: Being the History of His Peculiar Life at Home and Astonishing Adventures in Foreign Parts Never Before Printed Read Online Free PDF

understood that he had been
tricked, and he was dreadfully angry. He hurried
back to the prison at once
    But he was too late. The door stood open.
The dungeon was empty. The Doctor and all
his animals were gone.

The Seventh Chapter
— The Bridge of Apes
*
    QUEEN ERMINTRUDE had never in her life seen her husband
so terrible as he got that night. He gnashed his teeth
with rage. He called everybody a fool. He threw his
tooth-brush at the palace cat. He rushed round
in his night-shirt and woke up all his army and
sent them into the jungle to catch the Doctor.
Then he made all his servants go too—his cooks
and his gardeners and his barber and Prince
Bumpo's tutor—even the Queen, who was tired
from dancing in a pair of tight shoes, was packed
off to help the soldiers in their search.
    All this time the Doctor and his animals were
running through the forest towards the Land of
the Monkeys as fast as they could go.
    Gub-Gub, with his short legs, soon got tired;
and the Doctor had to carry him—which made
it pretty hard when they had the trunk and the
hand-bag with them as well.
    The King of the Jolliginki thought it would
be easy for his army to find them, because the
Doctor was in a strange land and would not
know his way. But he was wrong; because the
monkey, Chee-Chee, knew all the paths through
the jungle—better even than the King's men
did. And he led the Doctor and his pets to the
very thickest part of the forest—a place where
no man had ever been before—and hid them all
in a big hollow tree between high rocks.
    "We had better wait here," said Chee-Chee,
"till the soldiers have gone back to bed. Then
we can go on into the Land of the Monkeys."
    So there they stayed the whole night through.
    They often heard the King's men searching
and talking in the jungle round about. But
they were quite safe, for no one knew of that
hiding-place but Chee-Chee—not even the
other monkeys.
    At last, when daylight began to come through
the thick leaves overhead, they heard Queen
Ermintrude saying in a very tired voice that it
was no use looking any more—that they might
as well go back and get some sleep.
    As soon as the soldiers had all gone home,
Chee-Chee brought the Doctor and his animals
out of the hiding-place and they set off for the
Land of the Monkeys.
    It was a long, long way; and they often got
very tired—especially Gub-Gub. But when he
cried they gave him milk out of the cocoanuts
which he was very fond of.
    They always had plenty to eat and drink;
because Chee-Chee and Polynesia knew all the
different kinds of fruits and vegetables that grow
in the jungle, and where to find them—like
dates and figs and ground-nuts and ginger and
yams. They used to make their lemonade out of
the juice of wild oranges, sweetened with honey
which they got from the bees' nests in hollow
trees. No matter what it was they asked for,
Chee-Chee and Polynesia always seemed to be
able to get it for them—or something like it.
They even got the Doctor some tobacco one day,
when he had finished what he had brought with
him and wanted to smoke.
    At night they slept in tents made of palm-
leaves, on thick, soft beds of dried grass. And
after a while they got used to walking such a lot
and did not get so tired and enjoyed the life of
travel very much.
    But they were always glad when the night
came and they stopped for their resting-time.
Then the Doctor used to make a little fire of
sticks; and after they had had their supper, they
would sit round it in a ring, listening to
Polynesia singing songs about the sea, or to Chee-
Chee telling stories of the jungle.
    And many of the tales that Chee-Chee told
were very interesting. Because although the
monkeys had no history-books of their own
before Doctor Dolittle came to write them for
them, they remember everything that happens by
telling stories to their children. And Chee-Chee
spoke of many things his grandmother had told
him—tales of long, long, long ago, before Noah
and the Flood—of the