an old man
(Tuglay) lived in a town at the centre of the world. There came a
season of drought, when their bananas spoiled, and all their plants
died from the hot sun. Tuglibung and Tuglay were very hungry, and
looked skinny, because they had nothing to eat.

One night as the old man slept, he dreamed that a little boy with
white hair came close to him, and said, "Much better it would be, if
you wouldstay here no longer; much better, that you go to the T'oluk
Waig [59] ('water-sources'), where there is a good place to live."

So the old folks started on their journey to the source of the
rivers. On their way, they stopped at one place that seemed good, and
staid for about a month; but there was little to eat, and they were
always hungry. At last, one day, the man climbed up into a tall tree,
whence he could see the whole earth, even to the border of the sky. Far
away he could see a little smoke, just like a cigarette. Then he
climbed "down the tree in a hurry, and told his wife what he had seen.

"I will go and find out where that smoke comes from," he said,
"and see if I can get some bananas and things,--all we can eat."

So the man started out and travelled a long way, leaving his wife at
home. As he approached the place where he had seen the smoke, he found
himself in a vast field full of fruit-trees and sugarcane-plants. The
sugarcane grew as big as trees; the bananas were as huge as the
trunks of cocoanut-palms; and the papaya-fruit was the size of a
great clay jar. He walked on until he reached a very large meadow,
full of long wavy grass, where there were many horses and carabao
and other animals. Soon after he left the meadow-grass, he could make
out, some distance ahead of him, a big house with many smaller houses
grouped around it. He was so scared that he could not see the houses
very well. He kept his eyes on the ground at his feet.

When he came up to the big house, he saw lying under it piles of human
bones. He then knew that the Datu of the Buso [60] lived there. In
all the other houses there were buso living too. But he went bravely
up the steps of the big house, and sat down on the floor. Right away,
while he sat there, the children of Buso wanted to eat him. But Tuglay
said, "No, no! don't eat me, because I just came to get bananas of
many different kinds."

Then the man made a bargain with the Datu of the Buso, and said,
"Give me some bananas, and I will pay you two children for them. Come
to m