The Htipeh Lagoons 21 



with which the banks of the hillock are partially protected 

 being, like everything else in the land, in a ruinous, tumble- 

 down condition. 



During the next ten days we tracked, poled and sailed 

 through a dreary country of alternate shallow lakes and 

 embanked watercourses, the home of immense flocks of 

 wild-fowl which are snared by the amphibious inhabitants 

 of this wild region, the greater part of which formed a vast 

 lake in the preceding summer, owing to a break in the 

 embankment. The lakes or lagoons are filled with aquatic 

 plants, chiefly " Kao-tsao," which shelter innumerable fish 

 who yield a fine prey to the many devices of the ingenious 

 Chinese fishermen. In one lake were crowds of small 

 boats fishing in company: after clustering together they 

 suddenly separate, forming a large circle ; then, hammering 

 with all their might with two flat bamboos on the forward 

 deck, they all draw in suddenly to the centre, driving the 

 fish before them. The noise was great, and heard a long 

 way off before the boats came in sight. Great expanses of 

 muddy land, fertilized by a fresh layer deposited in last 

 year's floods, had been sown with wheat, now just sprouting, 

 to be reaped in May. We fared poorly, there being no 

 good food purchasable at the miserable collections of reed- 

 and-pla^er huts, termed villages, alongside which we 

 usually tied up for the night. We once secured a fine carp, 

 five pounds for fivepence, upon which I hoped to make a 

 good dinner; but the cook, whom I remonstrated with for 

 not killing the fish before scaling him, let the poor thing 

 jump overboard with half his scales scraped off him. The 

 fact that his cruelty reacted upon the perpetrator afforded 

 me little compensation. 



The reeds which cover the marshy banks and extensive 

 flats bordering the Great River, from its mouth to where it 



