The Lilac Fairy Book, part 14 · page 21 2101Let us sail instead to another part of the world.’102‘Very well,’ said the dream-boy with the red cap and the silver band; ‘it is not far to America’--and at the same moment they were there.103The sun was shining and it was very warm.104Tall palm trees grew in long rows on the shore and bore coconuts in their top branches.105Men red as copper galloped over the immense green prairies and shot their arrows at the buffaloes, who turned against them with their sharp horns.106An enormous cobra which had crept up the stem of a tall palm tree threw itself on to a little llama that was grazing at the foot.107Knaps! it was all over the little llama.108‘Shall we land here?’ asked the dream-boy.109‘No,’ said Little Lasse.110‘I am so afraid that the buffaloes will butt us, and the great serpent eat us up.111Let us travel to another part of the world.’112‘Very well,’ said the dream-boy with the white coat, ‘it is only a little way to Polynesia’--and then they were there.113It was very warm there, as warm as in a hot bath in Finland.114Costly spices grew on the shores: the pepper plant, the cinnamon tree, ginger, saffron; the coffee plant and the tea plant.115Brown people with long ears and thick lips, and hideously painted faces, hunted a yellow-spotted tiger among the high bamboos on the shore, and the tiger turned on them and stuck its claws into one of the brown men.116Then all the others took to flight.117‘Shall we land here?’ asked the dream-boy.118‘No,’ said Little Lasse.119‘Don’t you see the tiger away there by the pepper plant?120Let us travel to another part of the world.’121‘We can do so,’ said the dream-boy with the blue eyes.122‘We are not far from Africa’--and as he said that they were there.123They anchored at the mouth of a great river where the shores were as green as the greenest velvet.124A little distance from the river an immense desert stretched away.125The air was yellow; the sun shone so hot, so hot as if it would burn the earth to ashes, and the people were as black as the blackest jet.126They rode across the desert on tall camels; the lions roared with thirst, and the great crocodiles with their grey lizard heads and sharp white teeth gaped up out of the river.127‘Shall we land here?’ asked the dream-boy.128‘No,’ said Little Lasse.129‘The sun would burn us, and the lions and the crocodiles would eat us up.130Let us travel to another part of the world.’131‘We can travel back to Europe,’ said the dream-boy with the fair hair.132And with that they were there.checked by a teacher133They came to a shore where it was all so cool and familiar and friendly.134There stood the tall birch tree with its drooping leaves; at the top sat the old crow, and at its foot crept the gardener’s black cat.135Not far away was a house which Little Lasse had seen before; near the house there was a garden, and in the garden a pea bed with long pea shells.136An old gardener with a green coat walked about and wondered if the cucumbers were ripe.137Fylax was barking on the steps, and when he saw Little Lasse he wagged his tail.138Old Stina was milking the cows in the farmyard, and there was a very familiar lady in a check woollen shawl on her way to the bleaching green to see if the clothes were bleached.139There was, too, a well-known gentleman in a yellow summer coat, with a long pipe in his mouth; he was going to see if the reapers had cut the rye.140A boy and a girl were running on the shore and calling out, ‘Little Lasse!141Come home for bread-and-butter!’142‘Shall we land here?’ asked the dream-boy, and he blinked his blue eyes roguishly.143‘Come with me, and I shall ask mother to give you some bread-and-butter and a glass of milk,’ said Little Lasse.144‘Wait a little,’ said the dream-boy.145And now Little Lasse saw that the kitchen door was open, and from within there was heard a low, pleasant frizzling, like that which is heard when one whisks yellow batter with a wooden ladle into a hot frying-pan.146‘Perhaps we should sail back to Polynesia now?’ said the happy dream-boy.1 2← previousThe Lilac Fairy Book, part 13next →The Lilac Fairy Book, part 15↑ back to The Lilac Fairy BookThis page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/14/page/2/