The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle (25 page)

Away down by the Table of the Throne stood a brand-new, brightly colored
totem-pole. All the Indian families had totem-poles and kept them set up
before the doors of their houses. The idea of a totem-pole is something
like a door-plate or a visiting card. It represents in its carvings
the deeds and qualities of the family to which it belongs. This one,
beautifully decorated and much higher than any other, was the Dolittle
or, as it was to be henceforth called, the Royal Thinkalot totem. It had
nothing but animals on it, to signify the Doctor's great knowledge of
creatures. And the animals chosen to be shown were those which to the
Indians were supposed to represent good qualities of character, such as,
the deer for speed; the ox for perseverance; the fish for discretion,
and so on. But at the top of the totem is always placed the sign or
animal by which the family is most proud to be known. This, on the
Thinkalot pole, was an enormous parrot, in memory of the famous Peace of
the Parrots.

The Ivory Throne had been all polished with scented oil and it glistened
whitely in the strong sunlight. At the foot of it there had been strewn
great quantities of branches of flowering trees, which with the new
warmth of milder climates were now blossoming in the valleys of the
island.

Soon we saw the royal litter, with the Doctor seated in it, slowly
ascending the winding steps of the Table. Reaching the flat top at last,
it halted and the Doctor stepped out upon the flowery carpet. So
still and perfect was the silence that even at that distance above I
distinctly heard a twig snap beneath his tread.

Walking to the throne accompanied by the old man, the Doctor got up upon
the stand and sat down. How tiny his little round figure looked
when seen from that tremendous height! The throne had been made for
longer-legged kings; and when he was seated, his feet did not reach the
ground but dangled six inches from the top step.

Then the old man turned round and looking up at the people began to
speak in a quiet even voice; but every word he said was easily heard in
the furthest corner of the Whispering Rocks.

First he recited the names of all the great Popsipetel kings who in days
long ago had been crowned in this ivory chair. He spoke of the greatness
of the Popsipetel people, of their triumphs, of their hardships. Then
waving his hand towards the Doctor he began recounting the things
which this king-to-be had done. And I am bound to say that they easily
outmatched the deeds of those who had gone before him.

As soon as he started to speak of what the Doctor had achieved for the
tribe, the people, still strictly silent, all began waving their right
hands towards the throne. This gave to the vast theatre a very singular
appearance: acres and acres of something moving—with never a sound.

At last the old man finished his speech and stepping up to the chair,
very respectfully removed the Doctor's battered high hat. He was about
to put it upon the ground; but the Doctor took it from him hastily and
kept it on his lap. Then taking up the Sacred Crown he placed it upon
John Dolittle's head. It did not fit very well (for it had been made for
smaller-headed kings), and when the wind blew in freshly from the sunlit
sea the Doctor had some difficulty in keeping it on. But it looked very
splendid.

Turning once more to the people, the old man said,

"Men of Popsipetel, behold your elected king!—Are you content?"

And then at last the voice of the people broke loose.

"JONG! JONG!" they shouted, "LONG LIVE KING JONG!"

The sound burst upon the solemn silence with the crash of a hundred
cannon. There, where even a whisper carried miles, the shock of it was
like a blow in the face. Back and forth the mountains threw it to one
another. I thought the echoes of it would never die away as it passed
rumbling through the whole island, jangling among the lower valleys,
booming in the distant sea-caves.

Suddenly I saw the old man point upward, to the highest mountain in
the island; and looking over my shoulder, I was just in time to see the
Hanging Stone topple slowly out of sight—down into the heart of the
volcano.

"See ye, Men of the Moving Land!" the old man cried: "The stone has
fallen and our legend has come true: the King of Kings is crowned this
day!"

The Doctor too had seen the stone fall and he was now standing up
looking at the sea expectantly.

"He's thinking of the air-chamber," said Bumpo in my ear. "Let us hope
that the sea isn't very deep in these parts."

After a full minute (so long did it take the stone to fall that depth)
we heard a muffled, distant, crunching thud—and then immediately
after, a great hissing of escaping air. The Doctor, his face tense with
anxiety, sat down in the throne again still watching the blue water of
the ocean with staring eyes.

Soon we felt the island slowly sinking beneath us. We saw the sea creep
inland over the beaches as the shores went down—one foot, three feet,
ten feet, twenty, fifty, a hundred. And then, thank goodness, gently
as a butterfly alighting on a rose, it stopped! Spidermonkey Island had
come to rest on the sandy bottom of the Atlantic, and earth was joined
to earth once more.

Of course many of the houses near the shores were now under water.
Popsipetel Village itself had entirely disappeared. But it didn't
matter. No one was drowned; for every soul in the island was high up in
the hills watching the coronation of King Jong.

The Indians themselves did not realize at the time what was taking
place, though of course they had felt the land sinking beneath them.
The Doctor told us afterwards that it must have been the shock of that
tremendous shout, coming from a million throats at once, which had
toppled the Hanging Stone off its perch. But in Popsipetel history the
story was handed down (and it is firmly believed to this day) that when
King Jong sat upon the throne, so great was his mighty weight, that the
very island itself sank down to do him honor and never moved again.

JONG THINKALOT had not ruled over his new kingdom for more than a couple
of days before my notions about kings and the kind of lives they led
changed very considerably. I had thought that all that kings had to
do was to sit on a throne and have people bow down before them several
times a day. I now saw that a king can be the hardest-working man in the
world—if he attends properly to his business.

From the moment that he got up, early in the morning, till the time he
went to bed, late at night—seven days in the week—John Dolittle was
busy, busy, busy. First of all there was the new town to be built. The
village of Popsipetel had disappeared: the City of New Popsipetel must
be made. With great care a place was chosen for it—and a very beautiful
position it was, at the mouth of a large river. The shores of the island
at this point formed a lovely wide bay where canoes—and ships too, if
they should ever come—could lie peacefully at anchor without danger
from storms.

In building this town the Doctor gave the Indians a lot of new ideas. He
showed them what town-sewers were, and how garbage should be collected
each day and burnt. High up in the hills he made a large lake by damming
a stream. This was the water-supply for the town. None of these things
had the Indians ever seen; and many of the sicknesses which they had
suffered from before were now entirely prevented by proper drainage and
pure drinking-water.

Peoples who don't use fire do not of course have metals either; because
without fire it is almost impossible to shape iron and steel. One of the
first things that John Dolittle did was to search the mountains till he
found iron and copper mines. Then he set to work to teach the Indians
how these metals could be melted and made into knives and plows and
water-pipes and all manner of things.

In his kingdom the Doctor tried his hardest to do away with most of the
old-fashioned pomp and grandeur of a royal court. As he said to Bumpo
and me, if he must be a king he meant to be a thoroughly democratic one,
that is a king who is chummy and friendly with his subjects and
doesn't put on airs. And when he drew up the plans for the City of New
Popsipetel he had no palace shown of any kind. A little cottage in a
back street was all that he had provided for himself.

But this the Indians would not permit on any account. They had been used
to having their kings rule in a truly grand and kingly manner; and they
insisted that he have built for himself the most magnificent palace ever
seen. In all else they let him have his own way absolutely; but they
wouldn't allow him to wriggle out of any of the ceremony or show that
goes with being a king. A thousand servants he had to keep in his
palace, night and day, to wait on him. The Royal Canoe had to be kept
up—a gorgeous, polished mahogany boat, seventy feet long, inlaid with
mother-o'-pearl and paddled by the hundred strongest men in the island.
The palace-gardens covered a square mile and employed a hundred and
sixty gardeners.

Even in his dress the poor man was compelled always to be grand and
elegant and uncomfortable. The beloved and battered high hat was put
away in a closet and only looked at secretly. State robes had to be
worn on all occasions. And when the Doctor did once in a while manage to
sneak off for a short, natural-history expedition he never dared to wear
his old clothes, but had to chase his butterflies with a crown upon his
head and a scarlet cloak flying behind him in the wind.

There was no end to the kinds of duties the Doctor had to perform and
the questions he had to decide upon—everything, from settling disputes
about lands and boundaries, to making peace between husband and wife who
had been throwing shoes at one another. In the east wing of the Royal
Palace was the Hall of Justice. And here King Jong sat every morning
from nine to eleven passing judgment on all cases that were brought
before him.

Then in the afternoon he taught school. The sort of things he taught
were not always those you find in ordinary schools. Grown-ups as well as
children came to learn. You see, these Indians were ignorant of many of
the things that quite small white children know—though it is also true
that they knew a lot that white grown-ups never dreamed of.

Bumpo and I helped with the teaching as far as we could—simple
arithmetic, and easy things like that. But the classes in astronomy,
farming science, the proper care of babies, with a host of other
subjects, the Doctor had to teach himself. The Indians were tremendously
keen about the schooling and they came in droves and crowds; so that
even with the open-air classes (a school-house was impossible of
course) the Doctor had to take them in relays and batches of five or six
thousand at a time and used a big megaphone or trumpet to make himself
heard.

The rest of his day was more than filled with road-making, building
water-mills, attending the sick and a million other things.

In spite of his being so unwilling to become a king, John Dolittle made
a very good one—once he got started. He may not have been as dignified
as many kings in history who were always running off to war and getting
themselves into romantic situations; but since I have grown up and seen
something of foreign lands and governments I have often thought that
Popsipetel under the reign of Jong Thinkalot was perhaps the best ruled
state in the history of the world.

The Doctor's birthday came round after we had been on the island six
months and a half. The people made a great public holiday of it
and there was much feasting, dancing, fireworks, speech-making and
jollification.

Towards the close of the day the chief men of the two tribes formed a
procession and passed through the streets of the town, carrying a very
gorgeously painted tablet of ebony wood, ten feet high. This was a
picture-history, such as they preserved for each of the ancient kings of
Popsipetel to record their deeds.

With great and solemn ceremony it was set up over the door of the new
palace: and everybody then clustered round to look at it. It had six
pictures on it commemorating the six great events in the life of King
Jong and beneath were written the verses that explained them. They were
composed by the Court Poet; and this is a translation:

(His Landing on The Island) Heaven-sent, In his dolphin-drawn canoe From
worlds unknown He landed on our shores. The very palms Bowed down their
heads In welcome to the coming King.

(His Meeting With The Beetle) By moonlight in the mountains He communed
with beasts. The shy Jabizri brings him picture-words Of great distress.

(He liberates The Lost Families) Big was his heart with pity; Big were
his hands with strength. See how he tears the mountain like a yam! See
how the lost ones Dance forth to greet the day!

(He Makes Fire) Our land was cold and dying. He waved his hand and lo!
Lightning leapt from cloudless skies; The sun leant down; And Fire
was born! Then while we crowded round The grateful glow, pushed he Our
wayward, floating land Back to peaceful anchorage In sunny seas.

(He Leads The People To Victory in War) Once only Was his kindly
countenance Darkened by a deadly frown. Woe to the wicked enemy That
dares attack The tribe with Thinkalot for Chief!

(He Is Crowned King) The birds of the air rejoiced; The Sea laughed and
gambolled with her shores; All Red-skins wept for joy The day we crowned
him King. He is the Builder, the Healer, the Teacher and the Prince;
He is the greatest of them all. May he live a thousand thousand years,
Happy in his heart, To bless our land with Peace.

IN the Royal Palace Bumpo and I had a beautiful suite of rooms of our
very own—which Polynesia, Jip and Chee-Chee shared with us.