Boats
Hitch up your cattle
And drive to Seattle
To see all the boats come in,—
From Kibi and Kobi
And Panama Dobi
And some from the Islands of Myn.
They’re bringing us rices
And cocoa and spices
And pineapples done up in tin,
And maybe Aunt Dinah
Will come back from China
If ever the boats get in.
First published in The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes (1918).
This rhyme feels like a child’s geography in motion — not from maps or textbooks, but from the imagination. Names like Kibi and Panama Dobi probably never existed, yet they sound just real enough to belong somewhere beyond the horizon.
In a time before airplanes, the world came home by boat. Spices, tins, stories — and maybe even someone dearly missed. The idea that Aunt Dinah might return from China is quietly emotional under the play — a child waiting at the harbor, hoping joy will arrive among the cargo.
