Excitement is mounting. The first group is to leave tomorrow at the crack of dawn, to return in time to farewell the other group at noon. However there is so much intoxication today that it seems to me doubtful whether we shall leave at all. I am in the second group to leave. 
{ 2 }
Dawn has cracked, and they are off! A magnificent sight they make in the early morning air, the breath of the beasts forming a curly mist above the line of wagons. The farewell, so intricately planned, failed to occur, due to inebriation on the part of the many. I am glad to relate, however, that I was there myself to see them off, tying a kerchief to the tip of my tail, and waving it emotionally in the air.
The first of them are back already, more sober than when they left, the jolts of travel having shaken their bellies down. Something suggests to me that the second farewell will be heartier than the first. But this is unfair to those who left first. Perhaps we could hold for them another ceremony of farewell, on an occasion such as crossing the fearsome River Xlx.
We are on the way. I am travelling in the third wagon, drawn by a giant (but docile) cameloceros. On top of our wagon is a platform for the rocatross. Little Buxtehude, because he is small and brave, rides the bird. The others with us are the old woman Olla Podrida, her daughter Abracadabra, her son Peccadillo, his friend Cumulonimbus, the boy Nenuphar, our noted chronologist Nostradampus, and his present mistress, Onomatopeia.
It is late afternoon and we are at the appointed spot, waiting for the first group to catch up. There is no sign of them yet. Perhaps they are confused about the arrangements and are waiting for us to return in order to farewell them once more. If they do not arrive within an hour, somebody will have to return for them.
They have not come. We have drawn lots to see who will go back. Since this is safe territory, two wagons and one beast of danger should be ample. This wagon, and that of the magician Ottoman, are chosen, along with the tamest gryphodile. Since Ottoman's wagon is fourth in the procession, it could be that the cards were not shuffled. No matter! On a fine autumn afternoon such as this, it is more pleasant to roll across the tussock than to wait impatiently.
We arrived just before sunset at the gathering-place where all the wagons were assembled last night. Deserted! The greying embers of their fires showed that they left hours ago. We followed their tracks, which ran parallel to ours made a few minutes earlier ; but theirs run closer towards the foothills. They must be leagues ahead of us. Never mind! It is a very pleasant evening.
We have just arrived at the appointed spot. To our dismay we have found nobody here. They have gone ahead. Ottoman surmises that they tired of waiting on this miserable hillside, and crossed the pass, to be out of the wind. Buxtehude is flying off on the noble bird, to test Ottoman's guess.
Ottoman was right. Buxtehude has seen the rest of our people camped on the ledge just over the other side of the pass, waiting for us. An impressive sight, he says ; all the fires form the shape of a crub. Shall we travel by night? Why not? On this desolate hillside all creatures must struggle to keep alive. They have no time to be dangerous.
It is a calm night. Many times I have ridden to the pass and up the hill beside. On the top of that hill I have sat and looked eastward, to the valley and the next line of hills, beyond which is a valley, and another line of hills, beyond which is a valley, and another line of hills, beyond which is a valley (but surely not another line of hills), and beyond that I do not know - except that is where the sun rises.This path greatly worries me: the earthquake may have created chasms and abysses. In darkness, one might easily fall down such a hole, never to be seen again. Imagine waiting, month after month, in the brambles at the bottom of the Man's armpit, scarcely able to see the sky through the thorns, calling for help that will never come because all the other triboldies have rediscovered the ancestral homeland, where they are enveloped in peace and luxury. But you (imagine it!) are slowly starving, bleeding, and at length collapsing from the heat experienced in the armpit, causing the Man to itch, and then if he scratches himself.... No, let us not think about that.
So we lit torches and set out, and at midnight rejoined the remainder of our people. Most were asleep. Unusual! It must be the travelling that tires them. Some of the elders who never sleep were strolling around the camp. Cagliostro, Quidditas, and such magicians at work in the bronze wagons, continuing in their fervent search for the Universal Strophe. For centuries they have been experimenting, and what have they discovered? Turning birds blue while they fly, changing dirt into licorice, and such trivia. If only our magicians could send us instantly to the homeland: now that would be useful magic. Spurning the magicians' drunken company, others, including Sparadrap and myself, were gathered around a fire, talking of old times. We talked till dawn, of times so old no trace of them remains.
The path we have worn down over the centuries finishes here. Most of us have made trips as far as the next pass ; some years ago I even ventured over the third pass, into the valley beyond, and for several days travelled along the banks of the mighty Xlx (where the Man's arm is said to meet his right shoulder). But I do not think that any of us has crossed that river. The danger, if in fact there ever was any, must have passed long ago, when every Grombix drowned in its wild waters ; but there is something that makes people uneasy at the river, says Sparadrap, who has been there several times. Last night he described his feeling there as a vestige of fear (well-put, I thought) ... I wonder what we shall experience when we all arrive there.
I do not like to discredit the ancients, but upon rereading the Journal of Duodecimo (and also, to a certain degree, that of Niddle-noddle), I am forced inescapably to the conclusion that in fancying that they were pursued beyond Aggabug, the crub-hole of their suspicions overpowered the rhubarb-root of their reason. The Grombix must have been idiotic indeed not to have captured our ancestors, whose strategy was lamentable, to say the least. I do not with to encourage dissension ; nor do I wish to disappoint Sparadrap, under whose auspices I became the chronicler ; therefore I shall later tear off this page, pretending that I spoilt it.
This page had been torn out,
and glued back in again.
XV.
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