"Oh, yes, indeed," said the Piffilosaurus. "This island is entirely peopled by harmless, vegetable-feeding creatures. If we had the others, of course, we wouldn't last long. But come, I will show you around the island. Let us go quietly up that valley there, so we shan't be seen till we reach the cover of the woods."
Then John Dolittle and Jip were taken by the Piffilosaurus all over the island of No-Man's-Land.
The Doctor said afterward that he had never had a more enjoyable or more instructive day. The shores of the island all around were high and steep, which gave it the appearance Jim had spoken of—like a plum pudding. But in the centre, on top, there was a deep and pleasant hollow, invisible from the sea and sheltered from the winds. In this great bowl, a good thirty miles across, the piffilosauruses had lived at peace for a thousand years, eating ripe bananas and frolicking in the sun.
Down by the banks of the streams the Doctor was shown great herds of hippopotami, feeding on the luscious reeds that grew at the water's edge. In the wide fields of high grass there were elephants and rhinoceri browsing. On the slopes where the forests were sparse he spied long-necked giraffes, nibbling from the trees. Monkeys and deer of all kinds were plentiful. And birds swarmed everywhere. In fact, every kind of creature that does not eat meat was there, living peaceably and happily with the others in this land where vegetable food abounded and the disturbing tread of Man was never heard.
Standing on the top of the hill with Jip and the piffilosaurus at his side, the Doctor gazed down over the wide bowl full of contented animal life and heaved a sigh.
"This beautiful land could also have been called the 'Animals' Paradise,'" he murmured. "Long may they enjoy it to themselves! May this, indeed, be No-Man's-Land forever!"
"You, Doctor," said the deep voice of the piffilosaurus at his elbow, "are the first human in a thousand years that has set foot here. The last one was King Kakaboochi's mother-in-law."
"By the way, what really became of her?" asked the Doctor. "The natives believe she was turned into a dragon, you know."
"We married her off," said the great creature, nibbling idly at a lily stalk. "We couldn't stand her here, any more than the King could. You never heard anybody talk so in all your life. Yes, we carried her one dark night by sea far down the coast of Africa and left her at the palace door of a deaf king, who ruled over a small country south of the Congo River. He married her. Of course, being deaf, he didn't mind her everlasting chatter in the least."
And now for several days the Doctor forgot all about his post office work and King Koko and his ship at anchor, and everything else. For he was kept busy from morning to night with all the animals who wanted to consult him about different things.