THROUGH WILD EUROPE 311 



for it was full of mosquitoes, which clung to the 

 rotting walls in thousands and buzzed hungrily 

 round us as we entered. The ground was so sodden 

 that when we sat the water oozed up and made a 

 pool, and there was, to complete our discomfort, an 

 overwhelming stench of damp and rotten reeds and 

 general filth. However, here we were kept prisoners 

 for a couple of hours ; and after eating some cold 

 food we had, we slept an uneasy siesta as well as we 

 could for the mosquitoes. This was the only roof 

 we had over us for the whole of this trip. 



We reached this day the mouth of the St. George's 

 arm into the Black Sea, and turned south to explore 

 the maze of marshes which surround the small lake 

 of Dranov, which I passed through last year. This 

 district was where Ivan thought we might, if any- 

 where, find the nesting-place of onocrotalus, but we 

 saw no signs of them. There was very little dry 

 ground anywhere, and we searched for some time 

 before we could find a sleeping-place. Passing the 

 night in our small lodkas would have been extremely 

 cramped and uncomfortable. It would have been 

 quite impossible to lie down, and, besides, we couldn't 

 cook anything. At last we discovered a small grass- 

 grown islet, indistinguishable from the surrounding 

 water. On all sides, as far as the horizon, nothing was 

 to be seen but a flat green expanse of water-grass and 

 rushes; we might have been on the boundless prairie, 



