l 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. They lived by the side of the great Lake
Pipple-Popple (one of the seven families, indeed, lived _in_ the lake), and
on the outskirts of t