98 FIFTEEN DAYS ON THE DANUBE. 



above us, but in vain we waited to see whether it would 

 descend, for it never came any nearer. 



Keeping along the path by the outskirts of the wood, we 

 soon came to the dwelling-place of some Schokat shepherds, 

 who, in company with their sheep, pigs, and dogs, were 

 leading a miserable existence in wretched straw huts sur- 

 rounded by mire and filth. 



As we approached, three or four of these wild fellows, 

 startled by the barking of their dogs, sprang out of the 

 huts. They were indeed almost savages, for their tattered 

 clothes but scantily covered their brown bodies, and their 

 black hair clogged with grease hung far below their shoulders. 

 Each of them had an axe-headed stick in his hand and a 

 knife stuck in his belt ; and one might really have fancied 

 one's self transported from one's own country into the region 

 of Khartoum, or somewhere still further south. 



They seemed to know the forester, for they at once took off 

 their hats to him, and when he told them who I was, they 

 came to kiss my hand. My guide said that they would be 

 the best men to employ for finding the nests of the birds of 

 prey, as they wandered about the woods the whole day, occu- 

 pying themselves while tending their flocks by finding the 

 nests of the larger birds and taking those of the smaller, and 

 eating the eggs. 



They wanted to go with us, but the forester sent them back, 

 and we continued our walk along the meadow, which was 

 here bounded on one side by lofty woods and on the other by 

 the Bega Canal. 



This channel, wrongly called a canal, is an ordinary arm 

 of the Danube, quite unregulated. It flows between high 

 crumbling banks, and is in most places thickly covered with 

 sedge and well stocked with Sand-Martins and Wild Ducks. 



We had still a few hundred yards to go before turning 

 again to the right into the wood, where a narrow footpath led 



