chiefly occupied herself in putting salt water
into a churn; while her three brothers churned it violently, in the hope
that it would turn into butter, which it seldom if ever did; and in the
evening they all retired into the tea-kettle, where they all managed to
sleep very comfortably, while Pussy and the Quangle-Wangle managed the
boat.
[Illustration]
After a time, they saw some land at a distance; and, when they came to it,
they found it was an island made of water quite surrounded by earth.
Besides that, it was bordered by evanescent isthmuses, with a great
gulf-stream running about all over it; so that it was perfectly beautiful,
and contained only a single tree, 503 feet high.
When they had landed, they walked about, but found, to their great
surprise, that the island was quite full of veal-cutlets and
chocolate-drops, and nothing else. So they all climbed up the single high
tree to discover, if possible, if there were any people; but having
remained on the top of the tree for a week, and not seeing anybody, they
naturally concluded that there were no inhabitants; and accordingly, when
they came down, they loaded the boat with two thousand veal-cutlets and a
million of chocolate-drops; and these afforded them sustenance for more
than a month, during which time they pursued their voyage with the utmost
delight and apathy.
[Illustration]
After this they came to a shore where there were no less than sixty-five
great red parrots with blue tails, sitting on a rail all of a row, and all
fast asleep. And I am sorry to say that the Pussy-Cat and the
Quangle-Wangle crept softly, and bit off the tail-feathers of all the
sixty-five parrots; for which Violet reproved them both severely.
[Illustration]
Notwithstanding which, she proceeded to insert all the feathers--two
hundred and sixty in number--in her bonnet; thereby causing it to have a
lovely and glittering appearance, highly prepossessing and efficacious.
[Illustration]
The next thing that happened to them was in a narrow part of the sea, which
was so entirely full of fishes that the boat could go on no farther: so
they remained there about six weeks, till they had eaten nearly all the
fishes, which were soles, and all ready-cooked, and covered with
shrimp-sauce, so that there was no trouble whatever. And as the few fishes
who remained uneaten complained of the cold, as well as of the difficulty
they had in getting any sleep on account of the extrem
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