1 68 BIRD-HUNTING 



ability, so I had to make the best of it. We waded 

 altogether for three or four hours and found nothing 

 more. The Turkish police officer meanwhile had 

 been reclining at his ease drinking raki, and when 

 I returned, sopping wet and very tired and hungry, 

 he was more than 'half seas over.' With his boots 

 off and his uniform unbuttoned he looked a very 

 disreputable and dissipated Turk. By this time 

 they had prepared a dinner for us all, to which we 

 did full justice, though I have to this moment a 

 vivid recollection of the nastiness of the chief dish, 

 a sort of maize porridge, very thick and stodgy. 



The people and the house generally had such a 

 wild look about them that I set up the camera for 

 a family group, after which I invited them to look 

 through the camera at one another. It was a funny 

 sight to see about seven or eight women, children 

 and boys, all trying to get their heads under the 

 focusing-cloth together, while a dirty-looking brat 

 would be doing his best to look in at the lens at the 

 same time. It was a hard task to keep them in order, 

 and give them each a chance of seeing something. 

 No doubt this was the first time any of them had 

 ever seen such a thing, and they evidently took me 

 for something like a magician. 



I had announced a reward of a napoleon for any 

 news of a veritable nest of White Herons, and 

 several times made expeditions to more or less 



