Of course many of the houses near the shores were now under water.  Popsipetel Village itself had entirely disappeared.  But it didn’t matter.  No one was drowned; for every soul in the island was high up in the hills watching the coronation of King Jong.

The Indians themselves did not realize at the time what was taking place, though of course they had felt the land sinking beneath them.  The Doctor told us afterwards that it must have been the shock of that tremendous shout, coming from a million throats at once, which had toppled the Hanging Stone off its perch.  But in Popsipetel history the story was handed down (and it is firmly believed to this day) that when King Jong sat upon the throne, so great was his mighty weight, that the very island itself sank down to do him honor and never moved again.

PART SIX

THE FIRST CHAPTER

NEW POPSIPETEL

Jong Thinkalot had not ruled over his new kingdom for more than a couple of days before my notions about kings and the kind of lives they led changed very considerably.  I had thought that all that kings had to do was to sit on a throne and have people bow down before them several times a day.  I now saw that a king can be the hardest-working man in the world—­ if he attends properly to his business.

From the moment that he got up, early in the morning, till the time he went to bed, late at night—­seven days in the week—­John Dolittle was busy, busy, busy.  First of all there was the new town to be built.  The village of Popsipetel had disappeared:  the City of New Popsipetel must be made.  With great care a place was chosen for it—­ and a very beautiful position it was, at the mouth of a large river.  The shores of the island at this point formed a lovely wide bay where canoes—­ and ships too, if they should ever come—­could lie peacefully at anchor without danger from storms.

In building this town the Doctor gave the Indians a lot of new ideas.  He showed them what town-sewers were, and how garbage should be collected each day and burnt.  High up in the hills he made a large lake by damming a stream.  This was the water-supply for the town.  None of these things had the Indians ever seen; and many of the sicknesses which they had suffered from before were now entirely prevented by proper drainage and pure drinking-water.

Peoples who don’t use fire do not of course have metals either; because without fire it is almost impossible to shape iron and steel.  One of the first things that John Dolittle did was to search the mountains till he found iron and copper mines.  Then he set to work to teach the Indians how these metals could be melted and made into knives and plows and water-pipes and all manner of things.

In his kingdom the Doctor tried his hardest to do away with most of the old-fashioned pomp and grandeur of a royal court.  As he said to Bumpo and me, if he must be a king he meant to be a thoroughly democratic one, that is a king who is chummy and friendly with his subjects and doesn’t put on airs.  And when he drew up the plans for the City of New Popsipetel he had no palace shown of any kind.  A little cottage in a back street was all that he had provided for himself.