During the course of the next day's travel the country became, as the snake had , freer and more open. Little by little the islands grew fewer and the mangroves not so . In the views there was less land and more water. The going was much easier now. For miles at a stretch the Doctor could paddle, without the help of his guide, in water that seemed to be quite deep. It was indeed a change to be able to look up and see a clear sky overhead once in a while, instead of that network of swamp trees. Across the heavens the travelers now occasionally saw flights of wild ducks and geese, winging their way .
 
"That's a sign we're near open water," said Dab-Dab.
 
"Yes," the snake agreed. "They're going to Junganyika. It is the feeding ground of great flocks of wild geese."
 
It was about five o'clock in the evening when they came to the end of the little islands and mud banks. And as the canoe's nose easily forward into open water they suddenly found themselves looking across a great inland sea.
 
The Doctor was tremendously impressed by his first sight of the Secret Lake. If the landscape of the swamp country had been mournful this was even more so. No eye could see across it. The edge of it was like the ocean's—just a line where the heavens and the water meet. Ahead to the eastward—the darkest part of the evening sky—even this line barely showed, for now the waters and the frowning night together in an inky mass. To the right and left the Doctor could see the fringe of the swamp trees running around the lake, disappearing in the distance North and South.
 
Out in the open great banks of gray mist rolled and joined and separated as the wind pushed them fretfully hither and over the face of the waters.
 
"My word!" the Doctor murmured in a quiet voice. "Here one could almost believe that the Flood was not over yet!"
 
"Jolly place, ain't it?" came Cheapside's cheeky voice from the stern of the canoe. "Give me London any day—in the worst fog ever. This is a bloomin' ' country. Look at them mist shadows skatin' round the lake. Might be old Noah and 'is family, playin' 'Ring-a-ring-a-rosy' in their night-shirts, they're that lifelike."
 
"The mists are always there," said the snake—"always have been. In them the first rainbow shone."
 
"Well," said the sparrow, "I'd sell the whole place cheap if it was mine—mists and all. 'Ow many 'undred miles of this bonny blue ocean 'ave we got to cross before we reach our Mr. Mudface?"
 
"Not very many," said the snake. "He lives on the edge of the lake a few miles to the North. Let us hurry and try to reach his home before darkness falls."
 
Once more, with the guide in front, but this time at a much better pace, the party set off.
 
As the light grew dimmer the calls of several night birds sounded from the mangroves on the left. Too-Too told the Doctor that many of these were , but of kinds that he had never seen or met with before.
 
"Yes," said the Doctor. "I imagine there are lots of different kinds of birds and beasts in these parts that can be found nowhere else in the world."
 
At last, while it was still just light enough to see, the snake swung into the left and once more entered the of the swamps. Following him with difficulty in the fading light, the Doctor was led into a deep glady . At the end of this the nose of the canoe suddenly bumped into something hard. The Doctor was about to lean out to see what it was when a deep, deep voice out of the gloom quite close to him.
 
"Welcome, John Dolittle. Welcome to Lake Junganyika."
 
Then looking up, the Doctor saw on a -like island the shape of an enormous turtle—fully twelve feet across the shell—standing outlined against the blue-black sky.
 
The long journey was over at last.
 
Doctor Dolittle did not at any time believe in traveling with very much baggage. And all that he had brought with him on this journey was a few things rolled up in a blanket—and, of course, the little black medicine-bag. Among those things, luckily, however, were a couple of candles. And if it had not been for them he would have had hard work to land safely from the canoe.
 
Getting them lighted in the wind that swept across the lake was no easy matter. But to protect their flame Too-Too wove a couple of little lanterns out of thin leaves, through which the light shone dimly green but bright enough to see your way by.
 
To his surprise, the Doctor found that the mound, or island, on which the turtle lived was not made of mud, though muddy footprints could be seen all over it. It was made of stone—of stones cut square with a .
 
While the Doctor was examining them with great curiosity the turtle said:
 
"They are the ruins of a city. I used to be content to live and sleep in the mud. But since my gout has been so bad I thought I ought to make myself something solid and dry to rest on. Those stones are pieces of a king's house."
 
"Pieces of a house—of a city!" the Doctor exclaimed, peering into the wet and darkness that surrounded the little island. "But where did they come from?"
 
"From the bottom of the lake," said the turtle. "Out there," Mudface nodded toward the gloomy wide-stretching waters, "there stood, thousands of years ago, the beautiful city of Shalba. Don't I know, when for long enough I lived in it? Once it was the greatest and fairest city ever raised by men and King Mashtu of Shalba the proudest in the world. Now I, Mudface the turtle, make a nest in the swamp out of the ruins of his palace. Ha! Ha!"
 
"You sound bitter," said the Doctor. "Did King Mashtu do you any harm?"
 
"I should say he did," Mudface. "But that belongs to the story of the Flood. You have come far. You must be weary and in need of food."
 
"Well," said the Doctor, "I am most anxious to hear the story. Does it take long to tell?"
 
"About three weeks would be my guess," whispered Cheapside. "Turtles do everything slow. Something tells me that story is the longest story in the world, Doctor. Let's get a nap and a bite to eat first. We can hear it just as well to-morrow."
 
So, in spite of John Dolittle's , the story was put off till the following day. For the evening meal Dab-Dab managed to around and gather together quite a nice mess of fresh-water shellfish and Too-Too collected some berries that did very well for dessert.
 
Then came the problem of how to sleep. This was not so easy, because, although the foundations of the turtle's mound were of stone, there was hardly a dry spot on the island left where you could lie down. The Doctor tried the canoe. But it was sort of and uncomfortable for sleeping, and now even there, too, the mud had been carried by Dab-Dab's feet and his own. In this country the great problem was g............