Volume Three—Chapter Five.
New Formosa—The Story of the Other Side.
“Once upon a time,” said Bevis, closing his eyes now, “there was a great traveller who went sailing all round every sea—”
“Except the New Sea,” said Mark. “Yes, except the New Sea which we found, and went riding over all the lands and countries, and climbing up all the mountains, and tramping through all the forests, and shooting the elephants and Indians and sticking pigs, and skinning boa-constrictors, and finding magicians—”
“What did the magicians do?”
“O! they did nothing very particular, one turned himself into a tree and was chopped up and burned in a bonfire and walked out of the smoke, and little things like that; and he went spying everywhere, and learned everything, and—”
“Go on—what next?”
“He went on till he said it was all no good, because if you went into the biggest forest that ever was you walked through it in about three years—”
“Like they did through Africa?”