Then he sat up in the boat, and looked about him. A wonderful country, indeed!--no trees, no grass, no houses, nothing but red stones and red sand,--and Mopsa was gone. Jack jumped on shore, for the boat had stopped, and was close to the brink of the river. He looked about for some time, and at last, in the shadow of a pale brown rock, he found her; and oh! delightful surprise, the apple-woman was there too. She was saying, "O my bones! Dearie, dearie me, how they do ache!" That was not surprising, for she had been out all night. She had walked beside the river with the Queen and her tribe till they came to a little tinkling stream, which divides their country from the sandy land, and there they were obliged to stop; they could not cross it. But the apple-woman sprang over, and, though the Queen told her she must come back again in twenty-four hours, she did not appear to be displeased. Now the Guinea-hens, when they had come to listen, the day before, to the apple-woman's song, had brought each of them a grain of maize in her beak, and had thrown it into her apron; so when she got up she carried it with her gathered up there, and now she had been baking some delicious little cakes on a fire of dry sticks that the river had drifted down, and Mopsa had taken a honeycomb from the rock, so that they all had a very nice breakfast. And the apple-woman gave them a great deal of good advice, and told them if they wished to remain in Fairyland, and not be caught by the brown doe and her followers, they must cross over the purple mountains. "For on the other side of those peaks," she said, "I have heard that fairies live who have the best of characters for being kind and just. I am sure they would never shut up a poor queen in a castle. "But the best thing you could do, dear," she said to Mopsa, "would be to let Jack call the bird, and make her carry you back to his own country." "The Queen is not at all kind," said Jack; "I have been very kind to her, and she should have let Mopsa stay." "No, Jack, she could not," said Mopsa; "but I wish I had not grown so fast, and I don't like to go to your country. I would rather run away." "But who is to tell us where to run?" asked Jack. "Oh," said Mopsa, "some of these people." "I don't see anybody," said Jack, looking about him. Mopsa pointed to a group of stones, and then to another group, and as Jack looked he saw that in shape they were something like people,--stone people. One stone was a little like an old man with a mantle over him, and he was sitting on the ground with his knees up nearly to his chin. Another was like a woman with a hood on, and she seemed to be leaning her chin on her hand. Close to these stood something very much like a cradle in shape; and beyond were stones that resembled a flock of sheep lying down on the bare sand, with something that reminded Jack of the figure of a man lying asleep near them, with his face to the ground.