SHOOTING DUCKS ON LAKE MAGGIORE. 137 



very coarse, which perhaps is a fault on the right side, 

 but it was very weak, and fouled the gun so that 

 it was all but impossible to mop the gun out after 

 firing ; and at times, from the glutinous nature of its 

 components, the cleaning rod would stick quite fast, 

 and it took, as the saying is, " three men and a boy " 

 to get it out at all. There were no breechloaders 

 in those days, so there was nothing for it but to put 

 up with all sorts of inconveniences as regards loading 

 and keeping the gun clean, which is a sine qud non 

 with a punt gun, unless you wish to have constant 

 miss-fires. 



Having engaged a man, a boatman of the said 

 village of Belgirate by the name of Jep, to work my 

 punt, which was a double-handed one, and having 

 inducted him into a suit of white canvas, or duck, with 

 a white lamb-skin cap, and being in the same dress 

 myself, we soon got afloat, and looked, I flatter myself, 

 about the right thing. After a little practice he learnt 

 to scull the punt fairly well. This is not a very easy 

 thing for a man to do, lying on his back in the stern 

 of a punt, with his head merely raised enough to see 

 over the stem of the punt, and see the ducks ahead 

 of him. The ducks were in great numbers not in 

 hundreds, but, I may say, in thousands and as you 



