Alice suddenly realised she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat pocket or a watch to take out of it, and, burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit hole, under the hedge. In another moment, down went Alice after it!

The rabbit hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down what seemed to be a very deep well.

Either the well was very deep or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time, as she went down, to look about her. First, she tried to make out what she was coming to but it was too dark to see anything. Then she looked at the sides of the well and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and bookshelves. Here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed. It was labeled "ORANGE MARMALADE," but, to her great disappointment, it was empty. She did not want to drop the jar, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.

Down, down, down! Would the fall never come to an end? There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began talking to herself. "Dinah'll miss me very much tonight, I should think!" (Dinah was the cat.) "I hope they'll remember her bowl of milk at teatime. Dinah, my dear, I wish you were down here with me!" Alice felt that she was dozing off, when suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves and the fall was over.

Alice was not a bit hurt and she jumped up in a moment. She looked up but it was all dark overhead. Before her was another long passage and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down it. There was not a moment to be lost. Away went Alice like the wind and was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, "Oh, my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting!" She was close behind it when she turned the corner but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen.

She found herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the roof. There were doors all around the hall but they were all locked and when Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying every door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever going to get out of there.

Suddenly she came upon a little table, all made of solid glass. There was nothing on it but a tiny golden key. Alice's first idea was that this might belong to one of the doors of the hall but, alas! either the locks were too large or the key was too small. However, on the second time around, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before and behind it was a little door about forty centimetres high. She tried the little golden key in the lock and to her great delight, it fitted!

Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat hole. She knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she wanted to get out of that dark hall and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains but she could not even get her head through the doorway. "Oh," said Alice, " how I wish I could shrink like a telescope! I think I could, if I only knew how to begin."

Alice went back to the table, hoping she might find another key on it, or at least, a book of rules for shrinking people like telescopes. This time she found a little bottle on it. " This bottle was not here before," said Alice. Tied around the neck of the bottle was a paper label with the words "DRINK ME" beautifully printed on it in large letters.

"No, I'll look first," she said, "and see if it's marked 'poison' or not," because she had never forgotten that if you drink from a bottle marked "poison," it is will make you sick, sooner or later. However, this bottle was not marked "poison," so Alice decided to taste it and, finding it very nice, she quickly drank all of it. It tasted like a mixture of cherry pie, custard, pineapple, roast turkey, toffy and hot buttered toast.

"What a curious feeling!" said Alice. "I must be shrinking like a telescope!"

And so it was indeed! She was now only twenty-five centimetres high and her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going through the little door into that lovely garden.

After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided to go into the garden immediately but, alas for poor Alice! When she got to the door, she found she had forgotten the little golden key and when she went back to the table for it, she found she could not possibly reach it. She could see the key quite clearly through the glass and she tried her best to climb up one of the legs of the table but it was too slippery and when she was too tired from trying, the poor little thing sat down and cried.

"Come on, it's no use crying!" said Alice to herself in an annoyed voice. "I advise you to stop crying immediately!" She generally gave herself very good advice, although she didn't often follow it and sometimes she got so angry with herself she started to cry.

Soon she noticed a little glass box that was lying under the table. She opened it and found in it a very small cake, on which the words "EAT ME" were beautifully marked in currants. "Well, I'll eat it," said Alice, "and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door. Either way, I'll get into the garden so I don't care which happens!"

Alice ate a little bit and said anxiously to herself, "Which way? Which way?" She put her hand on the top of her head to feel which way she was growing. She was surprised to find that she remained the same size and so she ate the whole cake.