No one went near her and the swallows had her to themselves. And they agreed afterward that they found her the best place for nesting they had ever used.
In a very short time the ship presented a curious and extraordinary sight, with the mud nests stuck all over her and birds flying in thousands round her masts, coming and going, building homes and feeding young ones.
And the farmers in England that year said the coming winter would be a hard one because the swallows had done their nesting abroad before they arrived and only spent a few weeks of the autumn in the North.
And later, after the nesting was all over, there were more than twice as many birds as there were before, of course. And you simply couldn't get on to the ship for the tons and tons of mud on her.
But the parent birds, as soon as the young ones were able to fly, set their children to work clearing up the mess. And all that mud was taken off and dropped into the harbor, piece by piece. And the Doctor's ship was left in a cleaner state than it had ever been before in its whole life.
Now, it happened one day that the Doctor came to the post office, as usual, at nine o'clock in the morning. (He had to get there at that time, because if he didn't the postmen didn't start working.) And outside the post office he found Jip, gnawing a bone on the pavement. Something curious about the bone struck the Doctor, who was, of course, being a naturalist, quite a specialist in bones. He asked Jip to let him look at it.
"Why, this is extraordinary!" said the Doctor, examining the bone with great care. "I did not know that this class of animals were still to be found in Africa. Where did you get this bone, Jip?"
"Over in No-Man's-Land," said Jip. "There are lots of bones there."
"And where might No-Man's-Land be?" said John Dolittle.