"The rout of the Amazons"
The Doctor told his pet he could be very proud of himself. For he was surely the only mouse in the world that ever won a war.
[CHAPTER IV]
PEARL DIVERS
The next morning the Doctor was up early. After a light breakfast (it was impossible to get any other kind in that poverty-stricken country) he asked Nyam-Nyam the way to the Harmattan Rocks and the Chief told him they were just beyond sight from here, about an hour and a half's paddle straight out into the ocean.
So the Doctor decided that he had better have a sea bird to guide him. And Dab-Dab went and got a curlew who was strolling about on the beach, doing nothing in particular. This bird said he knew the place quite well and would consider it an honor to act as guide to John Dolittle. Then, with Jip, Dab-Dab, Gub-Gub and the white mouse, the Doctor got into his canoe and started off for the Harmattan Rocks.
It was a beautiful morning and they enjoyed the paddle—though Gub-Gub came very near to upsetting the canoe more than once, leaning out to grab for passing sea weed, which he had noticed the curlew eating. Finally, for safety's sake, they made him lie down at the bottom of the canoe, where he couldn't see anything.
About eleven o'clock a group of little rocky islands were sighted, which their guide said were the Harmattan Rocks. At this point in their journey the mainland of Africa was just disappearing from view on the sky-line behind them. The rocks they were coming to seemed to be the home of thousands of different kinds of sea birds. As the canoe drew near, gulls, terns, gannets, albatrosses, cormorants, auklets, petrels, wild ducks, even wild geese, came out, full of curiosity to examine the stranger. When they learned from the curlew that this quiet little fat man was none other than the great Doctor Dolittle himself they passed word back to the rocks; and soon the air about the canoe was simply thick with wings flashing in the sunlight. And the welcome to their home that the sea birds screeched to the Doctor was so hearty and noisy you couldn't hear yourself speak.
It was easy to see why this place had been chosen for a home by the sea birds. The shores all around were guarded by half-sunken rocks, on which the waves roared and broke dangerously. No ship was ever likely to come here to disturb the quiet life of the birds. Indeed, even with a light canoe that could go in shallow water, the Doctor would have had hard work to make a landing. But the welcoming birds guided him very skillfully around to the back of the biggest island, where a bay with deep water formed a pretty sort of toy harbor. The Doctor understood now why these islands had been left in the possession of the poor Chief: no neighbors would consider them worth taking. Hard to approach, with very little soil in which crops could be grown, flat and open to all the winds and gales of heaven, barren and lonesome, they tempted none of the Chief's enemies. And so for many, many years they remained the property of Nyam-Nyam and his people—though indeed even they hardly ever visited them. But in the end the Harmattan Rocks proved to be of greater value than all the rest of the lands this tribe had lost.