Mudface's landing on his new home was quite an occasion. The Doctor paddled out alongside of him till they reached the island. Until he set foot on it, John Dolittle himself had not realized what a large piece of ground it was. It was more than a quarter of a mile across. Round in shape, it rose gently from the shores to the flat centre, which was a good hundred feet above the level of the lake.  
Mudface was tremendously pleased with it; climbing to the central plateau—from where you could see great distances over the flat country around—he said he was sure his health would quickly improve in this drier air.
 
Dab-Dab prepared a meal—the best she could in the circumstances—to celebrate what she called the turtle's house-warming. And everyone sat down to it; and there was much gayety and the Doctor was asked to make a speech in honor of the occasion.
 
 
Cheapside was dreadfully afraid that Mudface would get up to make a speech in reply and that it would last into the following day. But to the sparrow's relief the Doctor, immediately he had finished, set about preparations for his departure.
 
He made up the six bottles of gout mixture and presented them to Mudface with instructions in how it should be taken. He told him that although he was closing up the post office for regular service it would always be possible to get word to Puddleby. He would ask several birds of passage to stop here occasionally; and if the gout got any worse he wanted Mudface to let him know by letter.
 
The old turtle thanked him over and over again and the parting was a very affecting one. When at last the goodbyes were all said, they got into the canoe and set out on the return journey.
 
Reaching the mouth of the river at the southern end of the lake they paused a moment before entering the swamps and looked back. And there in the distance they could just see the shape of the old turtle on his new island, watching them. They waved to him and pushed on.
 
"He looks just the same as we saw him the night we arrived," said Dab-Dab—"you remember? Like a statue on a pedestal against the sky."
 
"Poor old fellow!" murmured the Doctor. "I do hope he will be all right now.... What a Wonderful life!—What a wonderful history!"
 
"Didn't I tell you, Doctor," said Cheapside, "that it was going to be the longest story in the world?—Took a day and half a night to tell."
 
"Ah, but it's a story that nobody else could tell," said John Dolittle.
 
"Good thing too," muttered the Sparrow. "It would never do if there was many of 'is kind spread around this busy world.—Of course, meself, I don't believe a word of the . I think he made it all up. 'E 'ad nothin' else to do—sittin' there in the mud, century after century, cogitatin'."
 
The journey down through the jungle was completed without anything special happening. But when they reached the sea and turned the bow of the canoe they came upon a very thing. It was an enormous hole in the beach—or rather a place where the beach had been taken away bodily. Speedy told the Doctor that it was here that the birds had picked up the stones and sand on their way to Junganyika. They had carried acres of the seashore nearly a thousand miles inland. Of course in a few months the action of the surf filled in the hole, so that the place looked like the rest of the beach.
 
But that is why, when many years later some learned visited Lake Junganyika, they said that the seashore on an island there was a clear proof that the sea had once flowed through that neighborhood. Which was true—in the days of the Flood. But the Doctor was the only scientist who knew that Mudface's island, and the stones that made it, had quite a different history.
 
On his arrival at the post office the Doctor was given his usual warm reception by the king and dignitaries of Fantippo who paddled out from the town to welcome him back.
 
Tea was served at once; and His seemed so delighted at renewing this ............