n the party was over, the Doctor and his pets started out to
go back to the seashore. And all the monkeys went with him as far as
the edge of their country, carrying his trunk and bags, to see him off.

THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER

THE BLACK PRINCE

BY the edge of the river they stopped and said farewell.

This took a long time, because all those thousands of monkeys wanted to
shake John Dolittle by the hand.

Afterwards, when the Doctor and his pets were going on alone, Polynesia
said,

"We must tread softly and talk low as we go through the land of the
Jolliginki. If the King should hear us, he will send his soldiers to
catch us again; for I am sure he is still very angry over the trick I
played on him."

"What I am wondering," said the Doctor, "is where we are going to get
another boat to go home in.... Oh well, perhaps we'll find one lying
about on the beach that nobody is using. 'Never lift your foot till
you come to the stile.'"

One day, while they were passing through a very thick part of the
forest, Chee-Chee went ahead of them to look for cocoanuts. And while
he was away, the Doctor and the rest of the animals, who did not know
the jungle-paths so well, got lost in the deep woods. They wandered
around and around but could not find their way down to the seashore.

Chee-Chee, when he could not see them anywhere, was terribly upset. He
climbed high trees and looked out from the top branches to try and see
the Doctor's high hat; he waved and shouted; he called to all the
animals by name. But it was no use. They seemed to have disappeared
altogether.

Indeed they had lost their way very badly. They had strayed a long way
off the path, and the jungle was so thick with bushes and creepers and
vines that sometimes they could hardly move at all, and the Doctor had
to take out his pocket-knife and cut his way along. They stumbled into
wet, boggy places; they got all tangled up in thick
convolvulus-runners; they scratched themselves on thorns, and twice
they nearly lost the medicine-bag in the under-brush. There seemed no
end to their troubles; and nowhere could they come upon a path.

At last, after blundering about like this for many days, getting their
clothes torn and their faces covered with mud, they walked right into
the King's back-garden by mistake. The King's men came running up at
once and caught them.

But Polynesia flew into a tree in the garden, without anybody seeing
her, and hid hers