ng a strong and close netting of cane
splinters across the mouth of the ditch, she made another narrow ditch
to let a thin rillet of spring water supply the well with fresh water.

Every day she spent a little time in building a hut, in a cosy place
surrounded by bush, which had only one opening; then she would go and
work a little at a garden wherein she had planted the sugar-cane, which
had been cut into three parts, and the two banana bulbs, and had sowed
her millet, and her sesamum, and yellow corn which she had brought in
the gourds, and every day she carefully fed her fish in the well. But
there were three things she missed most in her loneliness, and these
were the cries of an infant, the proud cluck of the hen after she lays
an egg, and the bleating of a kid at her threshold. This made her think
that she might replace them by something else, and she meditated long
upon what it might be.

Observing that there were a number of ground-squirrels about, she
thought of snares to catch them. She accordingly made loops of slender
but strong vines near the roots of the trees, and across their narrow
tracks in the woods. And she succeeded at last in catching a pair.
With other vines rubbed over with bird-lime she caught some young
parrots and wagtails, whose wing feathers she chopped off with her
bill-hook. And one day, while out gathering nuts and berries for her
birds, she came across a nest of the pelican, wherein were some eggs;
and these she resolved to watch until they were hatched, when she would
take and rear them. She had found full occupation for her mind, in
making cages for her squirrels and birds, and providing them with food,
and had no time at all for grief.

Izoka, however, being very partial to the fish in her well, devoted most
of her leisure to feeding them, and they became so tame, and intelligent
that they understood the cooing notes of a strange song which she taught
them, as though they were human beings. She fed them plentifully with
banana-batter, so that in a few months they had grown into a goodly
size. By-and-by, they became too large for the well, and as they were
perfectly tame, she took them out, and allowed them to go at large in
the pool; but punctually in the early morning, and at noon and sunset,
she called them to her, and gave them their daily portion of food, for
by this time she had a goodly store of bananas and grain from her
plantation and garden. One of the largest fish