out all
the fire from the well, and wherever a crack appeared in the baked
bottom she filled it up carefully, and she also plastered the sides all
round smoothly, and again she made a great fire in the pit, and left it
to burn all that day.

While the fire was baking the bottom and walls of the well, she hid her
hamper among a clump of reeds, and explored her neighbourhood. During
her wanderings she found a path leading northward, and she noted it.
She also discovered many nuts, sweet red berries, some round, others
oval and the fruit which is a delight to the elephants; and loading
herself with as many of these articles as she could carry, she returned,
and sat down by the mouth of the well, and refreshed herself. The last
work of the day was to take out the fire, plaster up the cracks in the
bottom and sides, and re-make the fire as great as ever. Her bed she
made not far from it, with her axe by her side.

On the next morning she determined to follow the path she had discovered
the day before, and when the sun was well-nigh at the middle of the sky,
she came suddenly in view of a banana-grove, whereupon she instantly
retreated a little and hid herself. When darkness had well set, she
rose, and penetrating the grove, cut down a large blanch of bananas,
with which she hurried back along the road. When she came to a stick
she had laid across the path, she knew she was not far from the pool,
and she remained there until it was sufficiently light to find her way
to the well.

By the time she arrived at her well it was in a perfect state, the walls
being as sound and well-baked as her cooking-pot. After half-filling it
with water, she roasted a few bananas, and made a contented meal from
them. Then taking her pot she boiled some bananas, and with these she
made a batter. She now emptied the pot, smeared the bottom and sides of
it thickly with this sticky batter, and then tying a vine round the pot
she let it down into the pond. As soon as it touched the ground, lo!
the minnows flocked greedily into the vessel to feed on the batter. And
on Izoka suddenly drawing it up she brought out several score of
minnows, the spawn of catfish, and some of the young of the bearded fish
which grow to such an immense size in our waters. The minnows she took
out and dried to serve as food, but the young of the cat and bearded
fish she dropped into her well. She next dug a little ditch from the
well to the pool, and after maki