*Chapter One*

*A brief historical background of Smiling Forest, Talkmuch Dolittle and
other famous characters*

Smiling Forest stood in the middle of the continent of Toro, the land of
the black animals. Years ago, Smiling Forest was ruled by Mansa Talkmuch
Dolittle, king of all the animals. The descendant of a lineage of
leatherworkers, Talkmuch Dolittle rose to prominence by the sweetness of
his tongue, the sharpness of his wit, the sheer size of his muscles, and
the sharpness of his teeth. Having talked or clawed to submission all his
major rivals for the throne, Talkmuch Dolittle “chased away” the former
vassal chief of Smiling Forest, who served a great alien white queen in the
distant forest of the red animals, and assumed leadership of Smiling
Forest. He was hailed as a great warrior and savior – the great peace that
had brought freedom to the animals of Smiling Forest!

For many years, Talkmuch Dolittle ruled Smiling Forest with a benign smile.
Like the envoy of the great queen of the red animals, Talkmuch Dolittle
made sure that absolute discipline reigned within the confines of Smiling
Forest, so that generally speaking, life on Smiling Forest remained serene
and peaceful throughout his long reign. His greatest weakness was that
Talkmuch Dolittle talked too much, did too little and paid too little
attention to the most ardent desires of his subjects. In general, however,
his reign was one of peacefulness, relative security and a relatively high
level of prosperity and dignity for the animals of Smiling Forest. For
while he maintained strict discipline in the land, he did so with a
philosophy of do nothing, suffer nothing.
Smiling Forest was a land of great social variety. There were very
troublesome folks like Buki the hyena whose favorite past time was to
ambush lesser animals and strike them dead or frighten them out of their
wits; the likes of Nice Boy the monkey, who specialized in stealing the
hard-earned food of other animals; his friend Nopa the hare, who enjoyed
playing dirty pranks on bigger folks like Samo the elephant and Toothy the
boar, who were rather slow of wit. Nopa particularly liked pretending that
he was Talkmuch Dolittle himself by hiding behind some tree and making
fearful noises to frighten lesser animals. There were the likes of Skimpy
the giraffe, who bore everyone with his endless bragging over his ability
to eat from tree tops; the likes of Saa the snake, who was such a notorious
liar that all the animals disappeared whenever they saw him coming. He had
caused many an untold misery to many an innocent animal by his crafty tales
of deceit and scheming. The animals never forgot that Saa was responsible
for the expulsion of Adama and Awa from the blissful garden of Ajana. And
there were Spotty the tiger and Blackie the panther, who were widely
rumored to have kingship ambitions and were said to be constantly plotting
against Talkmuch Dolittle. Indeed, so persistent did the rumors grow that
Talkmuch Dolittle banished Spotty and Blackie to a remote corner of Smiling
Forest.

And there was the notorious Cheku the parrot, the most unpopular animal in
Smiling. Cheku was reputed to have a very slippery tongue that just could
not stay in one place for one single minute. He was always rattling his
tongue about one thing or the other and when he had nothing to rattle his
tongue about, he cooked up some phony tale which he loudly parroted to all
who cared to listen. If he had no one to listen, Cheku the parrot would sit
on top of a tree and chatter loudly away, mostly complaining about jealous
folks who thought they were clever. And since there was supposed to be
freedom of speech and expression in Smiling Forest, no one ventured to stop
the garrulous parrot from having his noisy say.


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