Meanwhile Yamba would have gone out searching for roots for breakfast, and she seldom returned without a supply of my favourite water- lily buds already mentioned.

Often, in the years that followed, did that heroic creature _tramp on foot a hundred miles_ to get me a few sprigs of saline herbs.

She had heard me say I wanted salt, which commodity, strange to say, was never used by the natives; and even when I gave them some as an experiment they did not seem to care about it.

She would also bring in, by way of seasoning, a kind of small onion, known as the _nelga_, which, when roasted, made a very acceptable addition to our limited fare.

The natives themselves had but two meals a day--breakfast, between eight and nine o'clock, and then an enormous feast in the late afternoon.