The cassava, or tapioca plant, reared its high, passion-flower leaves above the grass, and some sago-palms thrust aloft their thick-stemmed trunks.
"Here is a change of menu, at any rate," he communed.
Breaking a thick branch off a poon tree he whittled away the minor stems.

A strong stick was needful to explore that leafy fastness thoroughly.
A few cautious strides and vigorous whacks with the stick laid bare the cause of such prodigality in a soil covered with drifted sand and lumps of black and white speckled coral.

The trees and bushes enclosed a well--safe-guarded it, in fact, from being choked with sand during the first gale that blew.
Delighted with this discovery, more precious than diamonds at the moment, for he doubted the advisability of existing on the water supply of the pitcher-plant, he knelt to peer into the excavation.

The well had been properly made.

Ten feet down he could see the reflection of his face.