THE PEOPLE OF THE MIRAGE In that remote land where Martin was born, with its bright warm climate and rich soil, no person need go very long hungry--not even a small boy alone and lost on the great grassy plain.

For there is a little useful plant in that place, with small leaves like clover leaves and a pretty yellow flower, which bears a wholesome sweet root, about as big as a pigeon's egg and of a pearly white colour.

It is so well known to the settlers' children in that desert country that they are always wandering off to the plain to look for it, just as the children in a town are always running off with their halfpence to the sweet-stuff shop.

This pretty white root is watery, so that it satisfies both hunger and thirst at the same time.

Now when Martin woke next morning, he found a great many of the little three-leaved plants growing close to the spot where he had slept, and they supplied him with a nice sweet breakfast.