FOURTEENTH DAY. 219 
impossible to get within shot of anything on the open water, 
and that we should have to foree our crafts through these 
thickets of reeds if we wished to meet with any success. 
Unfortunately this proved impossible with the larger boats, 
so both the keeper and I got into the little “esikel,” in which 
there was hardly room for two people, and the other gentle- 
men rowed along the edge of the reeds in the boats. 
By dint of the greatest exertions the keeper forced the small 
and very rickety craft through the great rushes, which kept 
closing over our heads again, and completely covered us with 
their cold wet stems. During this exciting voyage we were 
often nearly upset, and the thought of the impossibility of 
any one coming to our assistance if we really did tumble 
into the water was rather suggestive; for no boat could 
penetrate in here, nor could there be any question of swim- 
ming, while to have brought up other crafts from the keeper’s 
house or from the steamer and to have found us out would 
have taken a long time. All these ideas impelled the keeper 
and myself to work as hard as we could and, after advancing 
little by little, we found to our great delight and relief that 
at every few hundred yards there were reaches of perfectly 
open water surrounded by sedge, like glades in a forest. 
In the midst of the reed-beds we everywhere found float- 
ing nests of the Purple Herons, and at first the birds let 
us come so near that I easily shot one of them within a 
few yards. 
Penetrating a little further I saw among the colony of 
Herons several bigger and more solidly built nests, and on 
getting quite close to them some large wild geese flew up, 
making a great noise, and I was lucky enough to bring down 
a splendid Grey Lag Goose with a well-directed shot, although 
I had only loaded with No. 5 for smaller birds. We then 
reached the nest with a good deal of trouble and took the 
eggs, while, scared by the shot, herons, wild geese, and 
