20 
LAND & WATER 
July 26, 191 7 
wh'.'-h hangs downward from the boy's hand in 
th.it illustrated pjiilterer's hand-book, " Bolton 
Abbey in the Olden Time." Before it died it 
raised its splendid ruff and pecked my face ; 
though the shooting of it was half an accident, 
I still hate to remember it. 
Further out came a long, almost unpenetrable 
barrier of stiff bamboo reeds, through which a 
httle river wandered, too wide to jump and too 
tlcep to wade, and always a problem. As one 
broke a way through the reeds towards it one 
could hear the water tortoises dropping into it 
like large stones. If one kejit quiet they would 
sDon begin poking out their little black heads 
to see if the coast was clear. These reeds made 
a good ambush for the duck, mallard, widgeon 
and teal, swishing by in their tense rush, and 
som .-times a flock of widgeon came lamenting 
down the sky. 1 walked countless miles with a 
No. 7 in the right barrel and a No. 4 in the 
choko, soaked through and splashed with many 
kinds of mud, but sometimes I had my reward. 
The other side of the reeds the marsh was 
wilder, wetter and more treacherous, but still 
its splendid self. It ran right out to the sea, and after 
breaking tlirough the barrier one was confronted \yith 
a mighty and lonely panorama. The scream of seabirds 
tilled the air, the low sea moan came softly over the 
wastes, the rays of the sun struck up in dazzhng, waving 
sp.irks from every pool and watery place. Far to the right, 
where the bay curved in. the little painted sailing-ships were 
iiceiing over to the baby breeze, and on the beach a line ot 
Officers Lines in the Forest 
dots showed where the big seine net was coming reluctantly 
to shore. To the east the lovely rhythmical curve of the shore 
ran out to Kara Burnu, where the top of the mast and funnel 
(f the monitor on guard there miraged hazily above the 
horizon. . 
Once I remember hearing a band on a French battleship, 
close in shore, playing " La Reve des Grieux " from Manon, 
and the ebb and flow of that half lonely, half pathetic air 
seemed to complete and in no way break the 
lonely pathos of that forgotten corner of the 
world. Once too I was reminded that such 
places are fickle as the sea which rules them. 
Blown in by a southern gale, the sea rose up and 
Hooded the marsh. I quickly found myself 
bereft of landmarks in a strange, sluicing hostile 
place. Three times I fell in up to my neck, and 
only those who know how quickly such shocks, 
such struggles and such anxiety sap the strength 
:\nd moral of those who experience them, can 
appreciate with what relief I found at last, when 
it was almost dark, a possible way back. While 
I was struggling an aeroplane passed me not 
^00 feet up. I wondered if the pilot recognised 
■ny plight. I might easily have been drowned 
\.-i"thin his sight. But that was the only time 
I he marsh played me false. 
How good it used to be to come back home 
-s the light failed, when the men would be 
• mging round the fountain, when the roar of 
I he frogs came in from the marsh and the baby 
owl'^ were beginning their haunting and musical 
little talks in the darkening trees. Then dinner 
Maize Fields near Sedes ' 
was ready and all was well ! Later on, as the first warning 
of the coming heat, the marsh dried up, the snipe and 
duck disappeared, great swarms of mosquitoes took then- 
place and it was no longer a good or welcome place. But 
there was bathing in a rippHng purple sea, and one could 
lie out in a sun, not yet the merciless monarch of summer, 
and let the breezes blow through one till sheer bodily 
ecstasy overwhelmed the senses and produced that utter 
careless joy in living which was the birthright ot 
an earlier age. . 
The storks came then and fussed round their 
ancient nests on the roofs and in the trees, and 
rattled their beaks with joy of return, ,till a 
great clatter filled the air. One tattered patn 
arch was resting on the barn roof after his long 
flight and staring down at the unwelcome 
activity and martial display around him, when 
a frolicsme French aviator swooped down on him 
and fired his machine gun in the air. The 
patriarch bristled all over and ruffled his 
feathers as if to say: "What sort of hell is 
this, anyway ? What is that great and noisy 
bird droning past ? Is this the reward of my 
domestic constancy ? " He fluttered out to the 
marsh to think it over. Presently he returned, 
clattering his beak for his mate, and then they 
both began collecting twigs for the annual 
repairs and alterations. C'est la guerre was 
written all over him. Other memories one 
might recall of the pleasant weeks passed in 
this place that almost sec me i to belong to 
another world — a world happier and more serene 
than this war-stricken planet. 
By and by when all trees were rustling with leaves, and 
the earth had just settled down to its drowsy, summer 
stagnation, we had to say good-bye. We left with the 
deepest regret, our only consolation being that -we resigned 
it to the Serbs. They were worthy of it. As we went 
away a little party of them were singing a soft Slav love 
song, which was so akin to the spirit of the place that it 
seemed like Sedes itself bidding us a long farewell. 
Greek Regulars and Cretan Gendarmes 
