32 SAVAGE SVANETIA. 



old boat and go cruising about in the marsh, 

 seeking a dry place to land upon. Far as the 

 eye could see, to right and left of us, stretched 

 the great marsh, gleaming water and tall reed 

 forests dividing the space pretty equally 

 between them, the sky above alive with flights 

 of fowl, whose wild cries made sweet music to 

 the sportsman's ear, while on the far other 

 side, from a blue morning mist, the neat 

 villages of the Bessarabian hills peeped out. 

 A punt gunner might have filled his boat from 

 the stands of peewit and flocks of sandpipers 

 on the mud flats which we passed on our way, 

 but our minds were mtent on snipe ; and 

 unless one of these came rocketing overhead, 

 or a curlew for once forgot his ordinary 

 ution, our o-uns were allowed to lie idle 



ca 



until we reached our destination. Then the 

 fun was fast and furious. The moment your 

 foot was on shore the birds rose in whisps, 

 and so bewildered me personally that I shot 



