ttle 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