SHOOTING OVER DECOYS 43 



presenting itself, he would send a messenger to my hotel 

 bidding me come and wage war with him against the 

 fowl. In the course of a few days I received a note 



from B asking me to call at his bungalow the following 



evening at six o'clock, as he purposed going on a duck- 

 shooting expedition and would have a boat and decoys 

 ready for me. 



The shores of the lagoons were fringed with very high 

 reeds and rushes. Leading from one piece of water to 

 another there is usually a weak place in the rushes through 

 which a small boat or dug-out may be navigated, and al- 

 though such places are well known to the initiated they 

 are quite invisible to a stranger. The refuse from the 

 cow-byres of a neighbouring farm where a big herd of 

 oxen was kept had induced the most luxuriant sub- 

 aquatic growth I had ever seen, so luxuriant, indeed, 

 that as I subsequently discovered to my cost it was 

 only at the expense of a deal of labour one was able 

 to force one's boat through it. During dinner B in- 

 formed me that he had been down to the further lagoon, 

 at the head of which he had erected a couple of " blinds," 

 behind which we were to " lay up " for the duck. He 

 had also hired two dug-outs from a native. 



Nine o'clock p.m. was just striking when we shoved off 

 from the lake-shore in brilliant starlight weather, my 

 companion in one boat and myself in the other, each of 

 us taking a double 12-bore gun and home-made, but very 

 artistically fashioned and coloured, wooden decoys. As 

 instructed, I, to the best of my ability, followed close in 

 the wake of the brawny engineer's boat. It proved ter- 

 ribly hard work to keep in touch with him, however, for 

 the water-plants formed a dense mat from the bed to the 



