Eucalyptus Grove had only been populated for a few months. Prior to that, it was off limits to koalas, as it belonged to a human who would only give it up for a rather large sum of money. Yet at that time, the koalas not only had no money: they didn't even know what it was. Thus, the central grove of the three that were placed from east to west, spaced at four or five hundred yards one from the other, and that were connected at their northern ends by a dense, uninterrupted forest, thereby forming the heart of Southern Koalaland, was virtually untouched – except for the occasional squirrel, and the birds that built their nests in the trees.
About four hundred and fifty yards to the west of Eucalyptus Grove was Koalatown, which was amply populated: nearly three thousand koalas were at home there. It was the largest of the three groves, yet it was certainly not the most beautiful. The trees not growing as densely as in the other two, it had less shade; the leaves of the eucalyptus trees there were not of the finest quality, though they were edible.
Koalatown might nonetheless have been a rather attractive place, if its inhabitants had cared for it more. But the truth be told, the tree dwellers of Koalatown were not koalas of the highest breeding. To put it plainly, they were for the most part a motley bunch. Some had ancestors that had lived there for centuries, yet others were the offspring of two or three wilder types of koala whose forebears had come from primitive groves far to the east, or else from ones now abandoned, located on the northern side of Koala Mountain, whose southern slope began its steep ascent only about fifty yards into the woods at the northern end of Koalatown. This assortment of semi-savage koalas, who often quarrelled and were even violent at times, was of course hard to keep under control, all the more so because most of them resented discipline of any kind, and were quick to rebel if anyone tried to limit their freedom.
This is no doubt why latter-day Koalatown had adopted a democratic system of government, which guaranteed a great deal of freedom to its citizens (more than some of the elders among them thought reasonable, to be sure), and whose electoral system provided them with the opportunity to choose a new leader if they got fed up with the present one. Looking out across the field east of Koalatown, the view was splendid, for Eucalyptus Grove could be seen there in the near distance, its dense green trees and other foliage providing a delight to the eye of any red-blooded koala.
To the north, as already mentioned, was the forest, dark and enticing, and offering a safe way to take a walk eastwards if any koala wanted to go over to Eucalyptus Grove to pick a basket of fresh leaves. All agreed that the leaves there were of the finest quality, their rich, refreshing taste fulfilling the promise made by their exquisite aroma. The human owner of the grove lived far away, in Human City, and though he refused to let koalas settle there – probably fearing that if he did, the law might soon grant them permission to stay permanently – he didn't seem to care if they went over to pick leaves, no doubt because he had no way of knowing that they did so.
At the western border of Koalatown was a road, leading south to north. Like all roads in Koalaland, it was unpaved, which made travel difficult when the rains came, and converted the soil into a sea of mud. But when the weather was nice, one could travel northwards up the road, between Koalatown on one's right and Boar Forest to the left, and journey past the western slope of Koala Mountain. Continuing even farther for a half hour or so by wagon, one came to the wide, majestic, though largely barren expanses of the Great Koala Plain, so forbidding in its vastness that it was only relatively recently that the koalas had begun to travel across it. But there was good reason to do so, for after a wagon journey of about a day and a half, moving steadily northwards, one arrived at the great Koala City, a huge grove that dwarfed even Koalatown, and whose population of over ten thousand Koalas far surpassed the entire population of Koalatown (almost 3.000) and Koalaville (about 980) put together. The establishment of regular commerce between the southern groves and Koala City, that would begin almost a year after the migration of the Koalaville koalas to Eucalyptus Grove, would prove to be a major leap the development of civilization in the south.
Yet let us stay in Southern Koalaland for the moment. If one started out at the eastern border of Koalatown, travelled across the adjoining field, then walked all the way through Eucalyptus Grove to its other edge, one could see Koalaville in the distance, about five hundred yards away. It had been the home of almost one thousand koalas until a peculiar turn of events led to the resettlement of them all to their present home, Eucalyptus Grove, an event in recent koala history that the community thus affected refers to as 'The Great Migration'.
We will now go back several months, to mid winter, at a time when those koalas were still living in Koalaville, and had as of yet no king, so that we can see just how these changes came about.