Long, long ago, far, far away on the other side of the world,
some young men left the camp where they lived to get some food
for their wives and children. The sun was hot, but they liked
heat, and as they went they ran races and tried who could hurl
his spear the farthest, or was cleverest in throwing a strange
weapon called a boomerang, which always returns to the thrower.
They did not get on very fast at this rate, but presently they
reached a flat place that in time of flood was full of water, but
was now, in the height of summer, only a set of pools, each
surrounded with a fringe of plants, with bulrushes standing in
the inside of all. In that country the people are fond of the
roots of bulrushes, which they think as good as onions, and one
of the young men said that they had better collect some of the
roots and carry them back to the camp. It did not take them long
to weave the tops of the willows into a basket, and they were
just going to wade into the water and pull up the bulrush roots
when a youth suddenly called out: 'After all, why should we waste
our time in doing work that is only fit for women and children?
Let them come and get the roots for themselves; but we will fish
for eels and anything else we can get.'

This delighted the rest of the party, and they all began to
arrange their fishing lines, made from the bark of the yellow
mimosa, and to search for bait for their hooks. Most of them
used worms, but one, who had put a piece of raw meat for dinner
into his skin wallet, cut off a little bit and baited his line
with it, unseen by his companions.