I had not known what water was.

I had never appreciated it.

So it was my destiny to learn that water is the greatest thing on earth.

I hung over a three-foot hole in a dry stream-bed, and watched it ooze and seep through the sand, and fill up--oh, so slowly; and I felt it loosen my parched tongue, and steal through all my dry body with strength and life.

Water is said to constitute three fourths of the universe.