SHOOTING IN CHINA. 305 



Grass atout up to one's knees, small clumps of bamboo, 

 ruined villages, and patches where cultivation once 

 existed, constituted the general features of the whole 

 face of the land for many more miles than I got over 

 during the day. Deep creeks or canals intersected in 

 all directions this perfect level. These were a consider- 

 able bother to get across, and made it difficult to find 

 your game if it dropped on the opposite side. Many 

 times, on knocking over a bird, and going to pick it 

 up, I found a deep, broad, impassable piece of water be- 

 tween my dead pheasant and myself; so level was it, 

 and such a sameness existed over the whole place, that 

 when thus actually within a few yards of the edge of 

 one of these troublesome creeks you did not know it. 



The way we kept in view our floating wigwam 

 was by hoisting a good large flag at her mastrhead, 

 which, waving above the banks, pointed out her posi- 

 tion, — otherwise to get totally adrift as to direction, 

 or which way to go when wishing to return, was not 

 only easy, but a certainty. I walked in a circle through 

 this grass, and on coming to a bamboo patch got to 

 one side of it, and putting my man in on the other, 

 had it walked through, tapping with a stick the bare 

 stems of the graceful plant as he did so. Pheasants 

 in streams came out, twenty or thirty, one after the 



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