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144 ADVENTURES IN TIBET.
where the men expected the swan to reappear ; and in
this way the poor bird was driven bit by bit towards the
edge of the reeds. These were at least 25 feet high and
proportionately thick, and when the swan dived in amongst
them, it was done for, being unable any longer to use its
wings. After it went the canoe like an arrow, and one
of the men, jumping into the water, seized hold of the
swan and killed it. In the reeds close by we found a dead
swan, which had been wounded two or three days before
and had died from its wounds. It was its grieving mate
that we now killed. I do not know whether it is true, but
the natives of Kara-koshun told me that swans are very
sensitive and feeling birds. Ordek once let fly into the
middle of a flock that was flying overhead. Two of the
swans tumbled into the lake, but only one of them was
dead, the other came down because, he said, it was unable
to desert the object of its affection.
It took me 25 days to return from Kum-chapgan to our
winter quarters at Yanghi-kol. The Mussulmans took
back our animals, while Chernoff and I made our way by
canoe. The first day two of the camels which were now
shedding their winter wool, so that they looked as bare and
comical as newly-fledged crows, dragged our two splendid
canoes sledge-fashion overland to a newly-formed river-
arm. Then we made our way up one deltaic branch of
the Tarim after another, paddling against the current,
crossing the lakes and threading the labyrinthine ways of
the stifling forests of reeds until one evening we at length
landed at our peaceful bay, where our brave old ferry-boat
lay rocking at her cables.
There we found everything well, except that Parpi Bai
had died during our absence. I missed him greatly, for
he had been with me in Tibet in 1896.
In my capacity as chief of the expedition, I now granted
myself ten days’ leave of absence, but spent them never-
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