This story was told long ago by the ancient people in Australia.
Once there was a child whose parents were dead, so he was left to his relatives. However, the relatives treated him badly. They didn't allow him to drink the water they had collected far away, so the was thirsty most of the time. The child was even told to eat eucalyptus leaves(桉树叶).
One day, after all the relatives left, the boy drank the water from his relatives' water bottles. Then he hung the bottles on a small tree and began to sing some ancient songs. At once, the tree began to grow very tall. When his relatives returned, they found the boy was on the tree with their bottles. They became very angry, for they could not reach the water and they knew the boy had played tricks on them. But they said that they would be kind to the boy if he came down and brought the water bottles with him.
However, as soon as the boy made his way down to the ground, his relatives set about beating him with sticks and stones until his body was quite soft. Mad with anger, they continued to heat him until a strange thing happened at last. The boy began to change. He became a koala and climbed up the tree. The relatives cut down the tree and the koala-boy disappeared. The bottles on the tree fell down and became a river.
Since that time, koalas have been treated with respect or all the water in the land will dry up.
