68 By Mountain, Lake, and Plain 



Our tents are now white clots in the level 

 distance, and in another half-hour we arrive there. 

 Nose-bags for man and beast come next, and 

 shortly after we are collected on the muddy edge 

 of a creek where we find our boats and a chatter- 

 ing crowd of sayads. Guns, cartridges, and our 

 distinguished selves are distributed, and like a 

 snake the procession uncoils itself and we glide 

 down the waterway cut through tall bulrushes 

 and feathery-headed flags. The other guns recline 

 in Roman attitudes on the humble reed boats of 

 the country, while my wife and I, in all the pride 

 of seniority and the married state, are in the 

 Berthon boat. The concession, gallantry apart, 

 awakes, if I mistake not, no pang of envy in the 

 breasts of the other sportsmen ; for though the 

 Berthon has certain solid advantages of stability 

 and ease, notably the raised seat necessary to the 

 comfort of the European sejant, it has the draw- 

 back of being difficult to hide in the reeds, and 

 in its nakedness seems to have a more terror- 

 striking effect on the race of wildfowl than the 

 reed boats to which they are more or less 

 accustomed. 



These tutins, as the cigar-shaped boats are called, 

 being low in the water are inconspicuous, and they 

 have a grandly devised ram for pushing through 

 the reeds. In their construction, which is most 



