Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking Glass

CHAPTER 3: Looking-Glass Insects

Of course the first thing to do was to make a grand survey of the country she was going to travel through. `It's something very like learning geography,' thought Alice, as she stood on tiptoe in hopes of being able to see a little further. `Principal rivers--there ARE none. Principal mountains--I'm on the only one, but I don't think it's got any name. Principal towns--why, what ARE those creatures, making honey down there? They can't be bees--nobody ever saw bees a mile off, you know--' and for some time she stood silent, watching one of them that was bustling about among the flowers, poking its proboscis into them, `just as if it was a regular bee,' thought Alice.

However, this was anything but a regular bee: in fact it was an elephant--as Alice soon found out, though the idea quite took her breath away at first. `And what enormous flowers they must be!' was her next idea. `Something like cottages with the roofs taken off, and stalks put to them--and what quantities of honey they must make! I think I'll go down and--no, I won't JUST yet, ' she went on, checking herself just as she was beginning to run down the hill, and trying to find some excuse for turning shy so suddenly. `It'll never do to go down among them without a good long branch to brush them away--and what fun it'll be when they ask me how I like my walk. I shall say-- "Oh, I like it well enough--"' (here came the favourite little toss of the head), `"only it was so dusty and hot, and the elephants did tease so!"'

`I think I'll go down the other way,' she said after a pause: `and perhaps I may visit the elephants later on. Besides, I do so want to get into the Third Square!'

So with this excuse she ran down the hill and jumped over the first of the six little brooks.

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