He rested during the midday heat, and continued his journey when it grew cool again; and in this way, at the end of seven days, he came to the Blue River.
It was a quarter of a mile wide, and as blue as the sky of midsummer, and fishes were popping their heads out of the water in every direction. The head of every fish was twice as large as a football, and had two rows of teeth. But Pei-Hang threw a red seed into the waves which were lapping the shore, and in a moment, instead of the wide blue river, a little brook lay at his feet.
The huge fishes were changed into tiny creatures like tadpoles, and he hopped across the brook on one foot.
Soon afterward he came to the White River, which was half a mile wide, so rapid that it was covered with foam, like new milk, and full of immense sea serpents. "I shan't be able to hop over this on one foot," thought Pei-Hang, throwing his red seed into the water.
But to his surprise the White River shrank just as rapidly as the Blue River into a tiny rippling brook, with some wee wriggling eels at the bottom.
Pei-Hang leaped lightly over it, and walked a long way before he came in sight of the Red River.
This was three-quarters of a mile wide, and bright scarlet. It looked like a flood of melted sealing-wax, and a row of alligators, with their mouths wide open, stretched right across it like a bridge.
"Now for my little red seed!" said Pei-Hang, opening his box quite cheerfully.
The nearest alligator made a snap at the seed as it sank in the river, but he missed it, and the next minute he found himself no bigger than a lizard, sitting at the bottom of a stream not half a yard across. At the other side of it Pei-Hang was met by one of the Genii, who had come down from his snow-peak to see who it was that had dared to play such tricks with the three mighty rivers.
Pei-Hang showed him the round white seeds in his other box.