Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe

<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> <h3>AFRICA.</h3> <p><span class="smcap">Oh!</span> oh! here is the little dried crocodile come alive, and opening a horrible great mouth lined with terrible teeth at her.</p> <p>No, he is no longer in the museum; he is in a broad river, yellow, heavy, and thick with mud; the borders are crowded with enormous reeds and rushes; there is no getting through; no breaking away from him; here he comes; horrid, horrid beast! Oh, how could Lucy have been so foolish as to want to travel in Africa up to the higher parts of the Nile? How will she ever get back again? He will gobble her<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></SPAN></span> up, her and Clare, who was trusted to her, and whatever will Mamma and sister do?</p> <div class="figleft"> <ANTIMG src="images/i009.jpg" width-obs="315" height-obs="400" alt="Hark! There&#39;s a cry, and out jumps a little black figure, with a stout club in his hand." title="Hark! There&#39;s a cry, and out jumps a little black figure, with a stout club in his hand." /> <span class="caption">Hark! There&#39;s a cry, and out jumps a little black figure, with a stout club in his hand.</span> <br/><div class='right'><i>Page 58.</i></div> </div> <p>Hark! There's a cry, a great shout, and out jumps a little black figure, with a stout club in his hand: smash it goes down on the head of master crocodile; the ugly beast is turning over on its back and dying. Then Lucy has time to look at the little Negro, and he has time to look at her. What a droll figure he is, with his woolly head and thick lips, the whites of his eyes and his teeth gleaming so brightly, and his fat little black person shining all over, as well it may, for he is rubbed from head to foot with castor-oil. There it grows on that bush, with broad, beautiful, folded leaves and red stems and the pretty grey and black nuts. Lucy only wishes the negroes would keep it all to polish themselves with, and not send any home.</p> <p>She wants to give the little black fellow some reward for saving her from the crocodile, and luckily Clare has on her long necklace of blue glass beads. She puts it into his hand, and he<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></SPAN></span> twists it round his black wool, and cuts such dances and capers for joy that Lucy can hardly stand for laughing; but the sun shines scorching hot upon her, and she gets under the shade of a tall date palm, with big leaves all shooting out together at the top, and fine bunches of dates below, all fresh and green, not dried like those Papa sometimes gives her at dessert.</p> <p>The little negro, Tojo, asks if she would like some; he takes her by the hand, and leads her into a whole cluster of little round mud huts, telling her that he is Tojo, the king's son; she is his little sister, and these are all his mothers! Which is his real mother Lucy cannot quite make out, for she sees an immense party of black women, all shiny and polished, with a great many beads wound round their heads, necks, ankles, and wrists; and nothing besides the tiniest short petticoats: and all the fattest are the smartest; indeed, they have gourds of milk beside them, and are drinking it all day long to keep themselves fat. No sooner however<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></SPAN></span> is Lucy led in among them, than they all close round, some singing and dancing, and others laughing for joy, and crying, "Welcome little daughter, from the land of spirits!" and then she finds out that they think she is really Tojo's little sister, who died ten moons ago, come back again from the grave as a white spirit.</p> <p>Tojo's own mother, a very fat woman indeed, holds out her arms, as big as bed-posts and terribly greasy, gives her a dose of sour milk out of a gourd, makes her lie down with her head in her lap, and begins to sing to her, till Lucy goes to sleep; and wakes, very glad to see the crocodile as brown and hard and immovable as ever; and that odd round gourd with a little hole in it, hanging up from the ceiling.</p> <hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></SPAN></span></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />