As soon as they were on the ship, Gub-Gub, the pig, asked where the beds were, for it was four o’clock in the afternoon and he wanted his nap. So Polynesia took him downstairs into the inside of the ship and showed him the beds, set all on top of one another like bookshelves against a wall.
“Why, that isn’t a bed!” cried Gub-Gub. “That’s a shelf!”
“Beds are always like that on ships,” said the parrot. “It isn’t a shelf. Climb up into it and go to sleep. That’s what you call ‘a bunk.’ ”
“I don’t think I’ll go to bed yet,” said Gub-Gub. “I’m too excited. I want to go upstairs again and see them start.”
“Well, this is your first trip,” said Polynesia. “You will get used to the life after a while.” And she went back up the stairs of the ship, humming this song to herself,
I’ve seen the Black Sea and the Red Sea; I rounded the Isle of Wight; I discovered the Yellow River, And the Orange too—by night. Now Greenland drops behind again, And I sail the ocean Blue. I’m tired of all these colors, Jane, So I’m coming back to you.
They were just going to start on their journey, when the Doctor said he would have to go back and ask the sailor the way to Africa.
But the swallow said she had been to that country many times and would show them how to get there.
So the Doctor told Chee-Chee to pull up the anchor and the voyage began.