152 BIRD-HUNTING 



swamp our heavily laden boat. The two boatmen 

 flatly refused to cross the lake, and for some time 

 we could only cling on under the lee of a submerged 

 willow-tree, which gave us a slight shelter, while we 

 deliberated as to what could be done. 



Finally it was decided to go in the opposite 

 direction, which would bring us to the heronry I had 

 seen from the steamer the previous day, and we 

 should be able to keep, most of the way, under the 

 shelter of a belt of submerged trees, reed-beds, and 

 water-lilies. A big bed of water-lilies makes a most 

 efficient breakwater. The force of the heaviest 

 waves is quickly spent and lost among the heavy, 

 floating leaves and long stalks of the lilies ; and 

 in place of the heavy water continually breaking 

 over the boat we rode comfortably and easily over 

 a long, oily swell. But the rain continued, and 

 though heavy rain is also very good in keeping 

 down a sea, yet it is most miserable to sit in a 

 small boat with no room to move, exposed hour 

 after hour to its pitiless pelting. 



Seeing at last a small huddle of poverty-stricken 

 huts on a rocky shore we determined to land for 

 the purpose of obtaining a hot meal of some kind if 

 it were possible. But the only things eatable to be 

 had were some smoked fish, which we broiled over 

 the fire in one of the houses. The people here 

 were so poor that though they had coffee there was 



