appeared in his eyes. And indeed it is no wonder. If you
make up your mind that you will see naught in a wife but faults, you
become blind to everything else.

Her cooking also according to him was vile--there was either too much
palm-oil or too little in the herb-mess, there was sand in the meat of
the fish, the fowls were nothing but bones, she was said to empty the
chilli-pot into the stew, the house was not clean, there were snakes in
his bed--and so on and so on. Then she threatened, when her tough
patience quite broke down, that she would tell her father if he did not
desist, which so enraged him that he took a thick stick, and beat her so
cruelly that she was nearly dead. This was too much to bear from one so
ungrateful, and she resolved to elope into the woods, and live apart
from all mankind.

She had travelled a good two days' journey when she came in sight of a
lengthy and wide pool which was fed by many springs, and bordered by
tall, bending reeds; and the view of this body of water, backed by deep
woods all round, appeared to her so pleasing that she chose a level
place near its edge for a resting-place. Then she unstrapped her
hamper, and sitting down turned out the things she had brought, and
began to think of what could be done with them. There was a wedge-like
axe which might also be used as an adze, there were two hoes, a handy
Basoko bill-hook, a couple of small nets, a ladle, half-a-dozen small
gourds full of grains, a cooking-pot, some small fish-knives, a bunch of
tinder, a couple of fire-sticks, a short stick of sugar-cane, two banana
bulbs, a few beads, iron bangles, and tiny copper balls. As she looked
over all these things, she smiled with satisfaction and thought she
would manage well enough. She then went into the pool a little way and
looked searchingly in for a time, and she smiled again, as if to say
"better and better."

Now with her axe she cut a hoe-handle, and in a short time it was ready
for use. Going to the pool-side, she commenced to make quite a large
round hole. She laboured at this until the hole was as deep and wide as
her own height; then she plastered the bottom evenly with the mud from
the pool-bank, and after that she made a great fire at the bottom of the
pit, and throughout the night that followed, after a few winks of sleep,
she would rise and throw on more fuel. When the next day dawned, after
breaking her fast with a few grains baked in her pot, she swept