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Alice Through the Looking Glass – Lewis Carroll

CHAPTER III. 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 ...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.