56 ODESSA AND MISKITCHEE. 



Gladly, then, we left the village behind us, and 

 drawing up our droshkies under the lee of a high 

 natural embankment beside the lake, prepared to 

 pass the night there. A hole was dug in the earth 

 and a subterranean fire made to cook over. Our 

 bourkas stretched over the droshky made a kind of 

 refuge between the wheels, into which we could 

 crawl and sleep in case of rain. 



These and other little preparations having been 

 at least started, we began our shooting. Two guns 

 went round the lake, one on either side ; one 

 worthy sportsman might have been seen arraying 

 himself in Mr. Cording's famous hose ; another, 

 simpler and perhaps wiser, divesting himself of all 

 the trammels which civilisation has thrown round 

 the lower limbs of bipeds. The wading party, 

 Cording's follower, and ' the unadorned,' made 

 through the shallow lake for the reed beds in 

 the centre ; here carefully concealed to reap the 

 benefit of the stalking party on either shore. The 

 fifth gunner, a tall thin German from Riga, the very 

 best of good fellows, with the longest of legs, had 

 taken to himself a large biscuit-tin, the which he 

 had deposited on a small sand-bank in the middle 

 of the lake. Seated on this, in his trim attire, 

 which no campaigning could ever make less natty, 

 with long limbs overspreading all the surrounding 

 country, our friend 1>. awaited the dodgy duck. 

 The men in the reeds had the best of it, though 



