168 FISHING GOSSIP. 



end, which did not reach to the bottom of the lake, 

 but enabled us to steer our course by means of the 

 dense masses of weeds growing out of the mud, or 

 suspended in the water. Sometimes a floating island 

 of several yards in diameter offered a punctum majoris 

 resistentice, but soon disappeared beneath the pressure 

 of the oar. Nothing can be more singular than to 

 see the grassy margin of the lake, just as the boat 

 seems on the point of landing there, disappear be- 

 neath its weight, and continue yielding before its 

 advance, which it does to such an extent that in 

 some places one may push the boat for sixty or 

 seventy yards over this floating meadow. 



The lake is cheerful enough on a bright day, its 

 surface being dotted over with water-lilies, the pure 

 white colour of which beautifully contrasts with the 

 brown, non-transparent water, and with the black 

 coots swimming and diving in hundreds between 

 them. But on a stormy day it has a very different 

 and a most desolate aspect. Venturing out in bad 

 weather, we found the wind blowing so hard .against 

 us, that we could not reach the landing-place with 

 our unmanageable boat, and so were obliged to cross 

 the lake, which was covered with white foam, and to 

 work our way through a narrow channel cut in the 

 crust for such emergencies ; the latter, meantime, by 

 its continued and regular heaving, showed clearly 

 that it rested on deep water. 



