u must drop him into your paw, and when you meet a Tortoise
you must shell him till he uncoils.'

'I don't think it was at all like that,' said Painted Jaguar, but he
felt a little puzzled; 'but, please, say it again more distinctly.'

'When you scoop water with your paw you uncoil it with a Hedgehog,' said
Stickly-Prickly. 'Remember that, because it's important.'

'_But_,' said the Tortoise, 'when you paw your meat you drop it into a
Tortoise with a scoop. Why can't you understand?'

[Illustration: THIS is an inciting map of the Turbid Amazon done in
Red and Black. It hasn't anything to do with the story except that there
are two Armadillos in it--up by the top. The inciting part are the
adventures that happened to the men who went along the road marked in
red. I meant to draw Armadillos when I began the map, and I meant to
draw manatees and spider-tailed monkeys and big snakes and lots of
Jaguars, but it was more inciting to do the map and the venturesome
adventures in red. You begin at the bottom left-hand corner and follow
the little arrows all about, and then you come quite round again to
where the adventuresome people went home in a ship called the _Royal
Tiger_. This is a most adventuresome picture, and all the adventures are
told about in writing, so you can be quite sure which is an adventure
and which is a tree or a boat.]

'You are making my spots ache,' said Painted Jaguar; 'and besides, I
didn't want your advice at all. I only wanted to know which of you is
Hedgehog and which is Tortoise.'

'I shan't tell you,' said Stickly-Prickly, 'but you can scoop me out of
my shell if you like.'

'Aha!' said Painted Jaguar. 'Now I know you're Tortoise. You thought I
wouldn't! Now I will.' Painted Jaguar darted out his paddy-paw just as
Stickly-Prickly curled himself up, and of course Jaguar's paddy-paw was
just filled with prickles. Worse than that, he knocked Stickly-Prickly
away and away into the woods and the bushes, where it was too dark to
find him. Then he put his paddy-paw into his mouth, and of course the
prickles hurt him worse than ever. As soon as he could speak he said,
'Now I know he isn't Tortoise at all. But'--and then he scratched his
head with his un-prickly paw--'how do I know that this other is
Tortoise?'

'But I _am_ Tortoise,' said Slow-and-Solid. 'Your mother was quite
right. She said that you were to scoop me out of my shell with your paw.
Begin.'

'You didn't say she said that a minut