THROUGH WILD EUROPE 305 



couple of fishermen and two small lodkas. These 

 were mere canoes ; in each there was barely room 

 for two persons, without any luggage. But cameras 

 had to be taken, also sleeping-rugs, food, cooking 

 pots, materials and tools for preserving skins, and 

 guns. These required careful stowing to get in 

 at all, and everything else was left behind. No 

 brushes or combs, no knives and forks or plates, 

 only a big spoon each, two mugs, ten huge loaves, 

 an iron pot, and onions, olives, sugar, salt, and tea. 



With these scanty stores we pushed off into the 

 watery wilderness, known as the Balta, for a week, 

 during which time we never entered a roof or a 

 bed, but slept on the ground wherever we happened 

 to be — or rather, where we could find any ground 

 solid enough to sleep on, which was not always an 

 easy matter — and depended upon our guns and the 

 fish we could get from the nets we passed on 

 our way. 



All my other expeditions have been luxurious in 

 comparison with this one, but I must say it was 

 from start to finish most enjoyable. I became quite 

 an adept at eating with my fingers, without plate, or 

 knife, or fork, such difficult foods as boiled fish, and 

 could enjoy my food under the very roughest con- 

 ditions. Some days we shot ducks, or took Coots' 

 eggs, and of fish we had the best — Carp, Danube 

 Salmon, Fresh-water Herrings, and so on. It seems 



