.

Day by day as I saw my lagoon grow gradually smaller, I felt that unless
I took some steps to ensure a more permanent supply, my people must
inevitably perish, and I with them. Naturally enough, they looked to me
to do something for them, and provide some relief from the effects of the
most terrible drought which even they had ever experienced. Almost daily
discouraging reports were brought to me regarding the drying up of all
the better-known water-holes all round the country, and I was at length
obliged to invite all and sundry to use my own all but exhausted lagoon.
At length things became so threatening that I decided to sink a well.
Choosing a likely spot near the foot of a precipitous hill, I set to work
with only Yamba as my assistant. Confidently anticipating the best
results, I erected a crude kind of windlass, and fitted it with a green-
hide rope and a bucket made by scooping out a section of a tree. My
digging implements consisted solely of a home-made wooden spade and a
stone pick. Yamba manipulated the windlass, lowering and raising the
bucket and disposing of the gravel which I sent to the surface, with the
dexterity of a practised navvy. What with the heat, the scarcity of
water, and the fact that not one of the natives could be relied upon to
do an hour's work, it was a terribly slow and wearying business; but
Yamba and I stuck to it doggedly day after day.

At the end of a week I had sunk a narrow shaft to a depth of twelve or
fourteen feet, and then to my infinite satisfaction saw every indication
that water was to be found a little lower down. In the course of the
following week I hit upon a spring, and then I felt amply rewarded for
all the trouble I had taken. Even when the lagoon was perfectly dry, and
only its parched sandy bed to be seen, the supply from our little well
continued undiminished; and it proved more than enough for our wants
during the whole of the drought. I even ventured to provide the
distressed birds and animals with some means of quenching their
insupportable thirst. A few yards from the well I constructed a large
wooden trough, which I kept filled with water; and each day it was
visited by the most extraordinary flocks of birds of every size and
variety of plumage--from emus down to what looked like humming-birds.
Huge snakes, ten and fifteen feet long, bustled the kangaroos away from
the life-giving trough; and occasionally the crowd would be so excessive
that s