94 By Mountain, Lake, and Plain 



coming down the wind, I think the geese were 

 the faster. I should not like to hazard a guess 

 at the rate geese can fly with a Seistan gale 

 behind them ! 



About midday we give the army of geese time 

 to rally and collect, eat our sandwiches and drink 

 our whisky and Helmund. Of one of th ese luncheon 

 hours I have a vivid recollection. Imagine wind 

 and rain driving over a " wide and melancholy 

 waste" of waters. Somewhere in the midst of 

 the expanse the top of an umbrella makes a 

 black dot. Lift it up and three muddy people 

 are revealed sitting in a mud - hole with 

 muddy water up to their knees ; about the 

 lunch itself there is more than a suspicion of 

 the same elemental substance. Down the neck 

 of one of them at any rate trickles a stream of 

 water from a point of the umbrella. As to the 

 conversation, it is not of geese nor duck nor 

 swamps nor cold feet nor rheumatism, but of a 

 restaurant in Piccadilly, and whether the music 

 of a band contributes or not to one's gustatory 

 (horrible word !) enjoyment. No matter how the 

 argument concluded. Of this much however I 

 am sure, that if any one present had made the 

 assertion that the geese music that reached us in 

 our mud-hole did not render that lunch enjoy- 

 able, he would have found himself in' a minority. 



