Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/126

114 of Great Buddha to forsake for ever this forbidden pool; but it seems crudely necessary to give our credence to the more scientific, though much less attractive, theory that the poisonous vapours mentioned by the Manchu are the result of the slow death of the lake through the putrefying activity of several species of bacteria, which, as they multiply, kill or frighten away all animal life.

Whatever the explanation, we shared in the realization of the fact and could not find any game around the shores of the lake, though we did pick up some unusual shooting experience along the marshy banks of the River Tolo about six miles from our prospecting work. It was one Saturday night that we first went there. We left our cart with the Chinese driver on the edge of the marsh, where the thick oak bushes began, and, taking with us a large kettle, cups, tea, salt, sugar and hard bread, penetrated into the high grass and reeds. Though it was still an hour to the dawn, we already heard the thrilling trumpeting of the geese, as we took our stands along the marsh, making our blinds among the bushes and waiting for the sun, which seemed so loath to appear.

Though the birds flew high that morning and gave us poor sport, I had the satisfaction of making an unusual double on a lone pair of big geese that came sweeping right over the waving tops of the grass and flared a wonderful target, which both the captain and I missed with all four cartridges. In disgust I reloaded and chased the birds across the stream with two shots that brought them down.

On the evening flight we had even worse treatment at the hands of Diana, for the Khingans joined the goddess of the hunt and poured down upon us a sudden freshet that drove us from our blinds and sent us wandering the whole night through over the flooded plain in a deluge of