But they were always glad when the night
came and they stopped for their resting-time.
Then the Doctor used to make a little fire of
sticks; and after they had had their supper, they
would sit round it in a ring, listening to
Polynesia singing songs about the sea, or to Chee-
Chee telling stories of the jungle.
And many of the tales that Chee-Chee told
were very interesting. Because although the
monkeys had no history-books of their own
before Doctor Dolittle came to write them for
them, they remember everything that happens by
telling stories to their children. And Chee-Chee
spoke of many things his grandmother had told
him--tales of long, long, long ago, before Noah
and the Flood--of the days when men dressed
in bear-skins and lived in holes in the rock and
ate their mutton raw, because they did not know
what cooking was--having never seen a fire.
And he told them of the Great Mammoths and
Lizards, as long as a train, that wandered over
the mountains in those times, nibbling from the
tree-tops. And often they got so interested
listening, that when he had finished they found
their fire had gone right out; and they had to
scurry round to get more sticks and build a new
one.
Now when the King's army had gone back
and told the King that they couldn't find the
Doctor, the King sent them out again and told
them they must stay in the jungle till they caught
him. So all this time, while the Doctor and his
animals were going along towards the Land of
the Monkeys, thinking themselves quite safe,
they were still being followed by the King's men.
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