The books of the royal library, so graciously bestowed upon me by King Gâ-roo, stood me in good service.
I determined to get at all the weaknesses of the Umi-Lobas, in order to see if I could not discover some way to elude their vigilance.
It was all dark to me for the first few days, but at length I caught a glimmer of hope.
It came about this way:
The Umi-Lobas dread water. My own observation, as well as Poly-dotto’s words, had directed my attention to this strange fact.
Provided by nature with limbs of such extraordinary strength that they can leap over streams, even thirty feet in width, they have a superstition that nature intended them to avoid touching the surface of a stream.
For the first, I now observed that they had no boats of any kind, and that their children, unlike other children, never played upon the banks of the beautiful streamlets which flowed in every direction around their homes.
“A boat is the thing I need!” said I to myself, every pulse beating with suppressed excitement.
But, ah! where to get it!
It were idle to attempt to build a boat or even a raft without attracting the attention of my watchers and raising an outcry.