264 EXTRACTS FROM 



after it had been brought to bay for a little while, an Ichneu- 

 mon broke from the cover in front of the Grand Duke, who 

 rolled the comical creature over, but it dragged itself back 

 into the thickets, where a sharp fight took place between it 

 and the dogs, who were following up the trail. One big 

 long-legged dachshund and the Ichneumon had got such a 

 grip of each other that they could be lifted up together, and 

 it was hard work to separate the combatants. In doing this 

 one of the gentlemen was bitten in the hand by the dog, and 

 another by the Ichneumon. 



During the beat a good many cormorants and herons had 

 flown past me along the shore, but I had not fired at them on 

 account of the larger game. 



It was now afternoon, so we decided to start on our long 

 passage straight across the lake to the opposite shore. We 

 rowed over in several boats, and as the air began to get 

 cooler, the splendid views of the lake and the desert afforded 

 us greater pleasure than they had hitherto given us. Our 

 boatmen, too, were in high spirits, and, casting off every scrap 

 of their clothing, raced the boats against each other, with 

 incessant shouts and wild inarticulate yells a sport which 

 suited us very well, as it brought us along much faster. 



After two hours of rowing we passed a small strip of 

 willow-bushes and came to a great sandbank, on which stood 

 our new camp, all in order and comfortably arranged, its 

 position having been judiciously chosen, for this perfectly dry 

 sandbank separated the lake from a tolerably large marsh. 



As dinner was not yet ready, some of us at once went to 

 the marsh, which lay between our camping-ground and the 

 outermost fields of the cultivated land. It was a tract of brown, 

 bad-smelling, boggy soil, covered with reeds, water-plants, 

 and willow-bushes, and swarming with snipe and waders, toads 

 and poisonous insects. We also flushed a few ducks and two 

 kinds of plovers, and after hastily shooting a few birds, left 



