It was after about a week of this practice in archery that we removed the covering from the hole where we had stored the bread-fruit, and looked to see how it was. To our great delight it was perfectly good, though it had changed its colour, being now somewhat yellowish, and also its smell, which was now something like that of yeast. This made me think that the paste was fermenting, as indeed it was; but it seemed to be none the worse, and we cooked a little and ate it with relish, finding it rather acid, like cheese. Being satisfied on this point, we immediately set to work to dig a larger hole, which we filled in like manner with a great quantity of bread-fruits, mashing them to a paste first in our earthen vessels. And having our anxiety thus relieved on the score of provision for the winter, we ought to have gone back to our work on the big hut, but we were so bent on improving our marksmanship, Billy being determined to go pig-hunting, that we spent nearly all our time in practising with our bows and arrows. By this means we made ourselves pretty fair marksmen at the stationary target, but when Billy talked about going out to shoot pigs, I said that he would find it a very different matter to hit a moving thing. However, he would not listen to me, but left me making some new arrows while he went off by himself. He came back after a long time, empty-handed and very crestfallen, having lost two arrows and broken a third, without hitting a single pig. "I tell you what, master," says he, "you carry the target while I take a shot at it: that will be as good as a running pig, and learn me to shoot 'em." "And suppose you hit me?" I said. "Well, I might, that's true," he said, "you being bigger than a pig. Don't I wish I knew how that there Little John aimed when he was shooting at a deer!" [Illustration: Clay Saucepans, and Tongs of Wood]