and every inhabitant adored the beautiful girl who ruled them and
delighted to obey her every command.

In spite of all I have said in a general way, there were some parts of
the Land of Oz not quite so pleasant as the farming country and the
Emerald City which was its center. Far away in the South Country
there lived in the mountains a band of strange people called
Hammer-Heads, because they had no arms and used their flat heads to
pound any one who came near them. Their necks were like rubber, so
that they could shoot out their heads to quite a distance, and
afterward draw them back again to their shoulders. The Hammer-Heads
were called the "Wild People," but never harmed any but those who
disturbed them in the mountains where they lived.

In some of the dense forests there lived great beasts of every sort;
yet these were for the most part harmless and even sociable, and
conversed agreeably with those who visited their haunts. The
Kalidahs--beasts with bodies like bears and heads like tigers--had
once been fierce and bloodthirsty, but even they were now nearly
all tamed, although at times one or another of them would get
cross and disagreeable.

Not so tame were the Fighting Trees, which had a forest of their own.
If any one approached them these curious trees would bend down their
branches, twine them around the intruders, and hurl them away.

But these unpleasant things existed only in a few remote parts of the
Land of Oz. I suppose every country has some drawbacks, so even this
almost perfect fairyland could not be quite perfect. Once there had
been wicked witches in the land, too; but now these had all been