or Latitude-line shall I be
in?" (Alice had no idea what Longitude was, or Latitude either,
but she thought they were nice grand words to say.)

Presently she began again: "I wonder if I shall fall right
through the earth! How funny it'll be to come out among the
people that walk with their heads downwards! But I shall have to
ask them what the name of the country is, you know. Please,
Ma'am, is this New Zealand or Australia?"--and she tried to
curtsey as she spoke (fancy curtseying as you're falling through
the air! do you think you could manage it?) "and what an ignorant
little girl she'll think me for asking! No, it'll never do to
ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere."

Down, down, down: there was nothing else to do, so Alice soon
began talking again. "Dinah will miss me very much tonight, I
should think!" (Dinah was the cat.) "I hope they'll remember her
saucer of milk at tea-time! Oh, dear Dinah, I wish I had you
here! There are no mice in the air, I'm afraid, but you might
catch a bat, and that's very like a mouse, you know, my dear. But
do cats eat bats, I wonder?" And here Alice began to get rather
sleepy, and kept on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way
"do cats eat bats? do cats eat bats?" and sometimes, "do bats
eat cats?" for, as she couldn't answer either question, it didn't
much matter which way she put it. She felt that she was dozing
off, and had just begun to dream that she was walking hand in
hand with Dinah, and was saying to her very earnestly, "Now,
Dinah, my dear, tell me the truth. Did you ever eat a bat?" when
suddenly, bump! bump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and
shavings, and the fall was over.

Alice was not a bit hurt, and jumped on to her feet directly: she
looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her was another
long passage, and the white rabbit was still in sight, hurrying
down it. There was not a moment to be lost: away went Alice like
the wind, and just heard it say, as it turned a corner, "my ears
and whiskers, how late it's getting!" She turned the corner after
it, and instantly found herself in a long, low hall, lit up by a
row of lamps which hung from the roof.

[Illustration]

There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked,
and when Alice had been all round it, and tried them all, she
walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to get
out again: suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table,
all made of solid