
“Evenings on the marshes are almost inconceivably magnificent.” 
the signs of their calling. Snooks, for 
instance, the oldest of them, and affec- 
tionately referred to as “Grandpa” by 
his comrades, might be regarded as the 
very ideal of the type to which the oth- 
ers approximated more or less closely. 
E was a man of medium height, 
thin and wiry. His long, sallow 
face was framed in a short, black 
bristle, that for demonstration pur- 
poses would have been the despair of 
the manufacturers of safety razors. 
His eyes were generally half-closed— 
like those of most men who are con- 
tinually in the open—it is only the gal- 
lants of the film and stage who have 
them so wide-staring, but they could 
look sharply enough when the occasion 
demanded. Indeed, we found that these 
punters all had eye-sight and hearing 
developed to an almost uncanny de- 
gree. 
Another man, who seemed most 
amenable to the name of “Bundy,” was 
stout and red-faced, but there was an 
indefinable something in his expression 
that betrayed his vocational comrade- 
ship to Snooks. All watermen, no mat- 
ter how small their craft or how shal- 
low their sea, walk on land with a slow, 
careful gait as if unwilling to repose 
too much confidence in terra firma, and, 
in the case of our punters, this charac- 
teristic was emphasized by their “wad- 
ers” or rubber hip boots. 
Jackson got out his decoys and 
loaded them into his boat, and we were 
ready to start. Snooks was to pilot 
our host, while to a muscular young 
fellow named Morris was assigned the 
difficulty of looking after Tash and 
myself. 
It was nine o’clock. The mist had 
nearly disappeared when we rounded 
the bend that hid the cottages from 
view, but there were enough grey 
wisps floating among the reeds to im- 
part that glamor of romance that is 
familiar to us through the marsh and 
fenland pictures of the masters. 
To any lover of Nature it must have 
been an impressive scene, and, to us 
at least, it was an unusual one. 
On both sides of the stream down 
which our punters poled us with silent 
dexterity the tall reeds grew thickly 
to the height of a man’s shoulder. An 
almost infinity of marsh seemed to 
stretch out in all directions, broken 
only in the far distance by odd-looking 
clumps of trees that, standing like 
oases, served only to emphasise the 
vastness of this strange domain of 
grass-grown shallows. 
@) = punters wielded a pole some 
ten feet in length and made with 
a paddle-end for use-where the waters 
were high. The depth of the streams 
and ponds is always an uncertain fac- 
tor, depending on the winds over the 
bay which separates the marshlands 
from the mainland shore. On the day 
of our excursion the greatest depth 
encountered was about five feet, while 
in some place it was “hard sledding” 
poling the punts over the muddy bot- 
tom with a few inches of water for 
lubrication purposes. 
UDDENLY there was a rustling in 
the reeds just ahead of Jackson’s 
punt. With a loud quacking, as if in 
protest at being rudely interrupted 
while at breakfast, a small flock of 
black ducks arose, and with a rapid 
whirring of wings made off to the left. 
Jackson signalled to us to come up 
with him. 
“If you want to get a good picture 
of the birds leaving the water, you’ll 
get it just ahead round the turn,” he 
said, when we had come alongside. 
“There are thousands of coots there, 
and, as we never disturb them, they’ll 
let you get as close as ten or fifteen 
yards from them before they begin to 
rise. There’ll be some black ducks and 
pin-tails, too, in all probability. We’ll 
drop behind so as to give you a better 
chance.” 
We went on ahead, Morris punting 
along with powerful strokes of the 
pole. 
Round the turn the stream opened 
into a wide pond. The water ahead 
was black with birds. They did not 
711 
