Still it was very pleasant drifting along, following the twists and turns of the stream. In some places the current ran very strongly, and Poor Cecco had to bend hard on the oar to keep the vessel from running ashore. Once they were caught in an eddy and very nearly upset. Certainly one needed to be a good navigator.
“We shall soon be on the other side of the world, at this rate,” thought Bulka, and he asked Poor Cecco: “Do all the rivers go to the same place?”
“They all flow into the sea,” replied Poor Cecco, who had learned that much from an old geography-book.
“Where does all the water come from?” asked Bulka.
But that Poor Cecco did not know, so he changed the subject. “Let’s talk about roads instead,” he said.
“Do rivers go faster or do roads go faster?” Bulka wanted to know.
Poor Cecco needed to think. “The roads go faster,” he said at last. “There is only one road and it goes all over the world and when it reaches the sea it has to turn round and come back again, and that makes it twice as long and so it has to go faster than the rivers to catch up.”
“What happens,” said Bulka, “if they both get there the same time?”
“Then they have to change places and start all over again.”
“I’d rather be the river,” said Bulka. He lay on his back, staring up at the sky with his round eyes. The sky
