But you must be tired of hearing about cocoanuts and their uses, so we will return to Alila and his strange adventures. One day not long ago his mother said to him: "My child, I should like some fish for dinner. Will you go to the river and get some?" Alila has great success in fishing. He started off at once on his errand. He did not stop to get hook and line, as you would have done; he knew another way to fish, different from any we have in our country. When he got to the river he walked along by its side till he found a place where the water ran very deep. Then he took off his clothing, and lay quietly down on the bank. His eyes were wide open and watchful, though his body was so still. He soon saw some fish rise near the surface of the water. Quick as a flash he jumped in and dived down, down under where the fish were darting. Rising as suddenly as he had dived, he came to the surface with a fish in each hand. He is such a nimble little fellow that he did this several times, and hardly ever failed. It was not long before he had a fine string of fish to carry home. As he walked back, he stopped to gather some green bamboos of medium size, for he knew they would be needed in cooking the dinner. While his mother was cleaning the fish, Alila made a fire and cut the bamboos at every joint. They were changed at once into baking pans, each one large enough to slip a fish inside, together with a little water and some spices. The ends were stopped up, and the bamboos laid in the fire. As soon as they began to burn, it was a sign that the fish inside were cooked enough. What a good dinner it was! You would have thought so if you could have tasted the rice steamed in the same way as the delicate fish and served on plantain leaves. Alila has still another way of fishing which is not as hard work as diving, though, after all, it is not much fun. He carries a bamboo basket in which he has put a mixture containing a curious kind of poison. He sets it floating on the water. When the fish come near it the poison makes them stupid, and they rise and float motionless on the surface, as though they were dead. Then it is an easy matter for Alila to get them. CHAPTER X. A SWARM OF LOCUSTS. THE little brown boy has lived, as you know, on a sugar plantation, where the cane ripens only once a year. You also remember that last summer a hurricane destroyed the boy's home, and a new one had to be built. The sugar crop barely escaped ruin, when, alas! another danger came to it, more fearful even than the great wind. It was a storm of locusts. Alila was working in the cane-fields with his loved buffalo one morning, when, looking up suddenly, he saw something which frightened him. It was a long distance away, far as his eyes could see, and it appeared like a dark cloud near the earth. [Illustration: "SUCH A DIN AND COMMOTION YOU NEVER HEARD"]