THE TOAD AS TRAVELLER 85 
place for him, and also difficult to travel in, seeing 
that it had a rough surface full of loosened stones, 
and was very dusty. His progress was very 
slow; he did not hop, but crawled laboriously 
for about five inches, then sat up and_ rested 
four or five minutes, then crawled and _ rested 
again. When I first caught sight of him he was 
about forty yards from the water, and looking 
at him through my binocular when he sat up 
and rested I could see the pulsing movements 
of his throat as though he panted with fatigue, 
and the yellow eyes on the summit of his head 
gazing at that delicious coolness where he wished 
to be. If toads can see things forty yards away 
the stream was visible to him, as he was on 
that part of the road which sloped down to the 
stream. 
Lucky for you, old toad, thought I, that it is 
not market day at Basingstoke or somewhere with 
farmers and small general dealers flying about the 
country in their traps, or you would be flattened 
by a hoof or a wheel long before the end of your 
pilgrimage. 
By and by another creature appeared wit 
caused me to forget the toad. A young water- 
vole came up stream, swimming briskly from the 
swampy meadow on the other side of the road. 
As he approached I tapped the wood with my 
stick to make him turn back, but this only made 
him swim faster towards me, and determined to 
have my own way I jumped down and tried to 
