Some women were busy planting in a country where water was scarce, so that they had brought their sangas, containing that precious fluid, with them. As they were working, a poor old woman, carrying a child on her back, passed by them, hesitated for a moment, and then walked back to them and asked them to give her child a cup of water.

The women said that they had carried the water from afar, and needed it for themselves, as there was no water just there.

The poor old woman passed on, but told them that they would one day regret their want of charity.

Noticing a man up a palm tree, she asked him if he would mind giving her baby a little palm-wine, as the poor little thing, she was afraid, was dying of thirst.

"Why not, mother?" he replied, and straightway came down the tree and placed a calabash at her feet.

But I have no cup," she said.

"Nay, mother, let me break this spare calabash, and give the child a drink."

She thanked him, and went her way, saying: "Be here, my son, at this time to-morrow."

He wondered what the old woman meant; but such was the impression her words had made upon him, that he could not sleep at all that night, and felt himself obliged, when the morrow came, to proceed to the place.

"Surely this cannot be the place," he said, as he came near to the palm-tree where he had met the old woman. "There was no water where the women were at work yesterday, yet surely that is a great lake."

"Wonder not, my son," said the old woman, as she approached him, "for thus have I punished the women for their want of charity. See my son, this lake is full of fish, and you and all men may fish here daily, and the abundance of fish shall never grow less. But no woman shall eat the fish thereof, for as sure as she eats the fish of this lake, so surely shall she immediately die. Lot the lake and its fish be kazila for women. For I, Nzambi, have so ordered it." Nzambi then loaded the young man with many gifts, and told him to depart in peace.