Another peculiar thing that baffled us completely, when we first came into the marshy regions of the Vanity Lily’s home, was the variety of scents which assailed our noses. For a mile or so around the locality there was no other flower visible; the whole of the marsh seemed to have been taken up by the lilies and nothing else intruded on their domain. Yet at least half a dozen perfumes were distinct and clear. At first we thought that perhaps the wind might be bringing us scents from other plants either in the jungle or the flowering heath lands. But the direction of the breeze was such that it could only come over the sandy desert areas and was not likely to bring perfumes as strong as this.
It was the Doctor who first hit upon the idea that possibly the lily could give off more than one scent at will. He set to work to find out right away. And it took no more than a couple of minutes to convince him that it could. He said he was sorry he had not got Jip with him. Jip’s expert sense of smell would have been very useful here. But for ordinary purposes it required nothing more delicate than an average human’s nose to tell that this flower, when John Dolittle had communicated the idea to it, was clearly able to give out at least half a dozen different smells as it wished.
The majority of these perfumes were extremely agreeable. But there were one or two that nearly knocked you down. It was only after the Doctor had asked the lilies about this gift of theirs that they sent forth obnoxious ones in demonstrating all the scents that they could give out. Chee-Chee just fainted away at the first sample. It was like some deadly gas. It got into your eyes and made them run. The Doctor and I only escaped suffocation by flight—carrying the body of the unconscious monkey along with us.
“Chee-Chee just fainted away at the first sample”
The Vanity Lilies, seeing what distress they had caused, immediately threw out the most soothing lovely scent I have ever smelled. Clearly they were anxious to please us and cultivate our acquaintance. Indeed it turned out later from their conversation with the Doctor (which I took down word for word) that in spite of being a stationary part of the Moon’s landscape, they had heard of John Dolittle, the great naturalist, and had been watching for his arrival many days. They were in fact the first creatures in our experience of the Moon that made us feel we were among friends.
I think I could not do better, in trying to give you an idea of the Doctor’s communication with the Vegetable Kingdom of the Moon, than to set down from my diary, word for word, some parts of the conversation between him and the Vanity Lilies as he translated them to me for dictation at the time. Even so, there are many I am sure who will doubt the truth of the whole idea: that a man could talk with the flowers. But with them I am not so concerned. Any one who had followed John Dolittle through the various stages of animal, fish, and insect languages would not, I feel certain, find it very strange, when the great man did at last come in touch with plant life of unusual intelligence, that he should be able to converse with it.
On looking over my diary of those eventful days the scene of that occasion comes up visibly before my eyes. It was about an hour before dusk—that is the slight dimming of the pale daylight which proceeded a half darkness, the nearest thing to real night we ever saw on the Moon. The Doctor, as we left the camp, called back over his shoulder to me to bring an extra note book along as he expected to make a good deal of progress to-night. I armed myself therefore with three extra books and followed him out.
Halting about twenty paces in front of the lily beds (we had camped back several hundred yards from them after they had nearly suffocated Chee-Chee) the Doctor squatted on the ground and began swaying his head from side to side. Immediately the lilies began moving their heads in answer, swinging, nodding, waving, and dipping.
