nd wag their tail,
if they've got one, and they are always ready for a romp or an excursion
or anything you want to propose. I think they are perfect gentlemen. All
these days we have had such good times, and it hasn't been lonesome for
me, ever. Lonesome! No, I should say not. Why, there's always a swarm
of them around--sometimes as much as four or five acres--you can't count
them; and when you stand on a rock in the midst and look out over the
furry expanse it is so mottled and splashed and gay with color and
frisking sheen and sun-flash, and so rippled with stripes, that you
might think it was a lake, only you know it isn't; and there's storms
of sociable birds, and hurricanes of whirring wings; and when the sun
strikes all that feathery commotion, you have a blazing up of all the
colors you can think of, enough to put your eyes out.

We have made long excursions, and I have seen a great deal of the world;
almost all of it, I think; and so I am the first traveler, and the only
one. When we are on the march, it is an imposing sight--there's nothing
like it anywhere. For comfort I ride a tiger or a leopard, because it is
soft and has a round back that fits me, and because they are such pretty
animals; but for long distance or for scenery I ride the elephant. He
hoists me up with his trunk, but I can get off myself; when we are ready
to camp, he sits and I slide down the back way.

The birds and animals are all friendly to each other, and there are no
disputes about anything. They all talk, and they all talk to me, but it
must be a foreign language, for I cannot make out a word they say; yet
they often understand me when I talk back, particularly the dog and the
elephant. It makes me ashamed. It shows that they are brighter than I
am, for I want to be the principal Experiment myself--and I intend to
be, too.

I have learned a number of things, and am educated, now, but I wasn't at
first. I was ignorant at first. At first it used to vex me because, with
all my watching, I was never smart enough to be around when the water
was running uphill; but now I do not mind it. I have experimented and
experimented until now I know it never does run uphill, except in the
dark. I know it does in the dark, because the pool never goes dry, which
it would, of course, if the water didn't come back in the night. It is
best to prove things by actual experiment; then you KNOW; whereas if
you depend on guessing and supposing and conjecturi