“We always took care to leave landmarks behind us”
In the earlier stages of our trip we had felt we must keep in touch with the first fruit section we had met with, in order to have a supply of vegetables and fruits to rely on for food. But we soon discovered from Polynesia’s scouting reports, that other wooded sections lay ahead of us. To these we sent Chee-Chee, the expert, to investigate. And when he returned and told us that they contained even a better diet than those further back, we had no hesitation in leaving our old haunts and venturing still further into the mysteries of the Moon’s Further Side.
The Doctor’s progress with the language of the trees and plants seemed to improve with our penetration into the interior. Many times we stopped and pitched camp for four or five days, while he set up some new apparatus and struggled with fresh problems in plant language. It seemed to grow easier and easier for him all the time. Certainly the plant life became more elaborate and lively. By this we were all grown more accustomed to strange things in the Vegetable Kingdom. And even to my unscientific eyes it was quite evident that here the flowers and bushes were communicating with one another with great freedom and in many different ways.
I shall never forget our first meeting with the Vanity Lilies, as the Doctor later came to call them. Great gaudy blooms they were, on long slender stems that swayed and moved in groups like people whispering and gossiping at a party. When we came in sight of them for the first time, they were more or less motionless. But as we approached, the movement among them increased as though they were disturbed by, or interested in, our coming.
I think they were beyond all question the most beautiful flowers I have ever seen. The wind, regular as ever, had not changed. But the heads of these great masses of plants got so agitated as we drew near, that the Doctor decided he would halt the expedition and investigate.
We pitched camp as we called it—a very simple business in the Moon, because we did not have to raise tents or build a fire. It was really only a matter of unpacking, getting out the food to eat and the bedding to sleep in.
We were pretty weary after a full day’s march. Beyond the lily beds (which lay in a sort of marsh) we could see a new jungle district with more strange trees and flowering creepers.
“Certainly the plant life became more elaborate and lively”