SUCCESS AFTER DISAPPOINTMENT. 303 



being little or no breeze ; otherwise six or eight more might 

 have been added to the bag. Obtaining some shade from a 

 small tree we sat down to rest and refresh, but before N. could 

 touch a morsel of food, he had to be dosed with a little iced 

 brandy and water, and his head and neck well soused in 

 abundance of iced water, with which remedies he was brought 

 round in about half-ari-hour, and saved from what might have 

 proved a dangerous sunstroke. A number of birds having 

 gone back and settled behind us, we walked over the same 

 ground once more towards the eastern end of the water, 

 adding twelve couple more to our bag, and then it behoved 

 us to cross over to the other side, on which we had ssen some 

 birds settle. Boat or raft there was none, accordingly hitting 

 off a cattle track we waded in cautiously, and succeeded in 

 crossing to the opposite bank with our ammunition and guns 

 dry, but wet ourselves to the waist. A walk of a mile or 

 two westward put ten and a half couple more on our stick?, 

 with which we had to be satisfied, the sun having sunk low, 

 and there being a long trudge before us to reach the railway 

 station to catch our train in good time. 



On arriving at the station we found our friends the 

 poachers bathed and dressed, they having preceded us by an 

 hour ; they were resting and enjoying a smoke when we came 

 in followed by one of our servants, carrying a half -filled snipe- 

 stick from which dangled a dozen birds. The sight of so 

 small a bag developed a grin on their faces, which faded away 

 on the entrance of another attendant with a heavily weighted 

 stick; finally, when the third arrived with the rest of the 

 forty-six and a half couple, their faces " sicklied o'er with 

 the pale cast of thought," and they softly whistled their way to 

 the other end of the platform, while we in our turn tubbed 

 and dressed in the travellers' room. Ultimately we all four 

 went down together amicably in the same train, and it then 

 came out that their bag of twenty-eight couple had been 

 made in the course of six or seven hours, upon the ground we 

 had discovered two days before, in passing which at ten that 

 morning we had heard the sounds of heavy firing, they having 



