The Doctor decided1 to leave Gub-Gub home this time and he took with him only Jip, Dab-Dab, Too-Too and Cheapside—who said he wanted a holiday and that his sparrow friends could now quite well carry on the city deliveries in his absence.
The great water snake began by taking the Doctor's party down the coast south for some forty or fifty miles. There they left the sea, entered the mouth of a river and started to journey inland. The canoe (with the snake swimming alongside it) was quite the best thing for this kind of travel so long as the river had water in it. But presently, as they went up it, the stream grew narrower and narrower. Till at last, like many rivers in tropical countries, it was nothing more than the dry bed of a brook2, or a chain of small pools with long sand bars between.
Overhead the thick jungle arched and hung like a tunnel of green. This was a good thing by day-time, as it kept the sun off better than a parasol. And in the dry stretches of river bed, where the Doctor had to carry or drag the canoe on home-made runners, the work was hard and shade something to be grateful for.
At the end of the first day John Dolittle wanted to leave the canoe in a safe place and finish the trip on foot. But the snake said they would need it further on, where there was more water and many swamps to cross.
As they went forward the jungle around them seemed to grow thicker and thicker all the time. But there was always this clear alley-way along the river bed. And though the stream's course did much winding3 and twisting, the going was good.
The Doctor saw a great deal of new country, trees he had never met before, gay-colored orchids4, butterflies, ferns, birds and rare monkeys. So his notebook was kept busy all the time with sketching5 and jotting6 and adding to his already great knowledge of natural history.
On the third day of travel this river bed led them into an entirely7 new and different kind of country. If you have never been in a mangrove8 swamp, it is difficult to imagine what it looks like. It was mournful scenery. Flat bog9 land, full of pools and streamlets, dotted with tufts of grass and weed, tangled10 with gnarled roots and brambling bushes, spread out for miles and miles in every direction. It reminded the Doctor of some huge shrubbery that had been flooded by heavy rains. No large trees were here, such as they had seen in the jungle lower down. Seven or eight feet above their heads was as high as the mangroves grew and from their thin boughs11 long streamers of moss12 hung like gray, fluttering rags.
The life, too, about them was quite different. The gayly colored birds of the true forest did not care for this damp country of half water and half land. Instead, all manner of swamp birds—big-billed and long-necked, for the most part—peered at them from the sprawling13 saplings. Many kinds of herons, egrets, ibises, grebes, bitterns—even stately anhingas, who can fly beneath the water—were wading14 in the swamps or nesting on the little tufty islands. In and out of the holes about the gnarled roots strange and wondrous15 water creatures—things half fish and half lizard—scuttled and quarreled with brightly colored crabs16.
For many folks it would have seemed a creepy, nightmary sort of country, this land of the mangrove swamps. But to the Doctor, for whom any kind of animal life was always companionable and good intentioned, it was a most delightful17 new field of exploration.
They were glad now that the snake had not allowed them to leave the canoe behind. For here, where every step you took you were liable to sink down in the mud up to your waist, Jip and the Doctor would have had hard work to get along at all without it. And, even with it, the going was slow and hard enough. The mangroves spread out long, twisting, crossing arms in every direction to bar your passage—as though they were determined18 to guard the secrets of this silent, gloomy land where men could not make a home and seldom ever came.
Indeed, if it had not been for the giant water snake, to whom mangrove swamps were the easiest kind of traveling, they would never have been able to make their way forward. But their guide went on ahead of them for hundreds of yards to lead the way through the best openings and to find the passages where the water was deep enough to float a canoe. And, although his head was out of sight most of the time in the tangled distance, he kept, in the worst stretches, a firm hold on the canoe by taking a turn about the bowpost with his tail. And whenever they were stuck in the mud he would contract that long, muscular body of his with a jerk and yank the canoe forward as though it had been no more than a can tied on the end of a string.
Dab-Dab, Too-Too and Cheapside did not, of course, bother to sit in the canoe. They found flying from tree to tree a much easier way to travel. But in one of these jerky pulls which the snake gave on his living towline, the Doctor and Jip were left sitting in the mud as the canoe was actually yanked from under them. This so much amused the vulgar Cheapside, who was perched in a mangrove tree above their heads, that he suddenly broke the solemn silence of the swamp by bursting into noisy laughter.
"The canoe was yanked from under them"
"Lor' bless us, Doctor, but you do get yourself into some comical situations! Who would think to see John Dolittle, M.D., heminent physician of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh19, bein' pulled through a mud swamp in darkest Africa by a couple of 'undred yards of fat worm! You've no idea how funny you look!"
"Oh, close your silly face!" growled20 Jip, black mud from head to foot, scrambling21 back into the canoe. "It's easy for you—you can fly through the mess."
"It 'ud make a nice football ground, this," murmured Cheapside. "I'm surprised the Hafricans 'aven't took to it. I didn't know there was this much mud anywhere—outside of 'Amstead 'Eath after a wet Bank 'Oliday. I wonder when we're going to get there. Seems to me we're comin' to the end of the world—or the middle of it. 'Aven't seen a 'uman face since we left the shore. 'E's an exclusive kind of gent, our Mr. Turtle, ain't 'e? Meself, I wouldn't be surprised if we ran into old Noah, sitting on the wreck22 of the Hark, any minute.... 'Elp the Doctor up, Jip. Look, 'e's got his chin caught under a root."
The snake, hearing Cheapside's chatter23, thought something must be wrong. He turned his head-end around and came back to see what the matter was. Then a short halt was made in the journey while the Doctor and Jip cleaned themselves up, and the precious notebooks, which had also been jerked out into the mud, were rescued and stowed in a safe place.
"Do no people at all live in these parts?" the Doctor asked the snake.
"None whatever," said the guide. "We left the lands where men dwell behind us long ago. Nobody can live in these bogs24 but swamp birds, marsh creatures and water snakes."
"About one more day's journey," said the snake. "A wide belt of these swamps surrounds the Secret Lake of Junganyika on all sides. The going will become freer as we approach the open water of the lake."
"We are really on the shores of it already, then?"
"Yes," said the serpent. "But, properly speaking, the Secret Lake cannot be said to have shores at all—or, certainly, as you see, no shore where a man can stand."
"Why do you call it the Secret Lake?" asked the Doctor.
"Because it has never been visited by man since the Flood," said the giant reptile26. "You will be the first to see it. We who live in it boast that we bathe daily in the original water of the Flood. For before the Forty Days' Rain came it was not there, they say. But when the Flood passed away this part of the world never dried up. And so it has remained, guarded by these wide mangrove swamps, ever since."
"What was here before the Flood then?" asked the Doctor.
"They say rolling, fertile country, waving corn and sunny hilltops," the snake replied. "That is what I have heard. I was not there to see. Mudface, the turtle, will tell you all about it."
"How wonderful!" exclaimed the Doctor. "Let us push on. I am most anxious to see him—and the Secret Lake."
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1
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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2
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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3
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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4
orchids
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| n.兰花( orchid的名词复数 ) | |
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5
sketching
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| n.草图 | |
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jotting
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| n.简短的笔记，略记v.匆忙记下( jot的现在分词 )；草草记下，匆匆记下 | |
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7
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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mangrove
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| n.(植物)红树，红树林 | |
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9
bog
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| n.沼泽；室...陷入泥淖 | |
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tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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11
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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12
moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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13
sprawling
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| adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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14
wading
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| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的现在分词 ) | |
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15
wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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16
crabs
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| n.蟹( crab的名词复数 )；阴虱寄生病；蟹肉v.捕蟹( crab的第三人称单数 ) | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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marsh
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| n.沼泽，湿地 | |
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20
growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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21
scrambling
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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bogs
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| n.沼泽，泥塘( bog的名词复数 )；厕所v.（使）陷入泥沼， （使）陷入困境( bog的第三人称单数 )；妨碍，阻碍 | |
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25
rinsing
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| n.清水，残渣v.漂洗( rinse的现在分词 )；冲洗；用清水漂洗掉（肥皂泡等）；（用清水）冲掉 | |
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26
reptile
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| n.爬行动物；两栖动物 | |
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