[CHAPTER V]
THE VOYAGE DELAYED
After some persuasion the Doctor consented to this proposal feeling that perhaps he could do some good. Little did he realize what great labors and strange adventures he was taking upon himself as he got into the canoe with the King, Begwe and Zuzana to be paddled to the town of Fantippo.
This place he found very different from any of the African villages or settlements he had ever visited. It was quite large, almost a city. It was bright and cheerful to look at and the people, like their King, all seemed very kind and jolly.
The Doctor was introduced to all the chief men of the Fantippo nation and later he was taken to see the post office.
This he found in a terrible state. There were letters everywhere—on the floors, in old drawers, knocking about on desks, even lying on the pavement outside the post office door. The Doctor explained to the King that this would never do, that in properly-run post offices the letters that had stamps on were treated with respect and care. It was no wonder, he said, that Zuzana's letter had never been delivered to her cousin if this was the way they took care of the mails.
Then King Koko again begged him to take charge of the post office and try to get it running in proper order. And the Doctor said he would see what he could do. And, going into the post office, he took off his coat and set to work.
But after many hours of terrific labor, trying to get letters sorted and the place in order, John Dolittle saw that such a tremendous job as setting the Fantippo post office to rights would not be a matter of a day or two. It would take weeks at least. So he told this to the King. Then the Doctor's ship was brought into the harbor and put safely at anchor and the animals were all taken ashore. And a nice, new house on the main street was given over to the Doctor for himself and his pets to live in while the work of straightening out the Fantippo mails was going on.
Well, after ten days John Dolittle got what is called the Domestic Mails in pretty good shape. Domestic mails are those that carry letters from one part of a country to another part of the same country, or from one part of a city to another. The mails that carry letters outside the country to foreign lands are called Foreign Mails. To have a regular and good service of foreign mails in the Fantippo post office the Doctor found a hard problem, because the mail ships which could carry letters abroad did not come very often to this port. Fantippo, although King Koko was most proud of it, was not considered a very important country among the regular civilized nations and two or three ships a year were all that ever called there.
Now, one day, very early in the morning, when the Doctor was lying in bed, wondering what he could do about the Foreign Mail Service, Dab-Dab and Jip brought him in his breakfast on a tray and told him there was a swallow outside who wanted to give him a message from Speedy-the-Skimmer. John Dolittle had the swallow brought in and the little bird sat on the foot of his bed while he ate his breakfast.