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EXCURSIONS ON THE STORMY LAKES. 163
place, I had to wait for Chernoff’s arrival, and then we
were kept waiting several days for a good storm before
we durst start. The fact is the lowlands around the marsh
of Kara-koshun were rendered uninhabitable by gadflies,
so that it was impossible, indeed positively dangerous,
for both men and animals to venture out. Our camels
had just shed their winter wool, and were perfectly bare.
Both they and the horses were kept hidden in a large
kamish hut, well packed all round with reeds, and it was
only at night that we dared take them out to water. But
it only needed a good storm from the east, and the gad-
flies would at once vanish like smoke.
I and the Cossacks also had to live in kamish huts.
At length Chernoff turned up, but considerably cast down
at having to leave us, just when we were about to begin
our longed-for life amongst the mountains. Whilst waiting
for the storm that would not come, I amused myself with
studying the poetry of the Lop-men. I need not say it
was very simple and artless, turning, as poetry does all
the world over, upon love. The ideas of these people ex-
tend but a little way beyond their canoes, their fishing-
nets and their excursions on the lakes. An under-current
of melancholy runs through all their songs, but the domi-
nant note is love for home and the domestic circle, sentiments
which in all their touching naivety never fail to move.
Unpretentious, monotonous, and poverty-stricken though
the lives of these people are, they nevertheless cherish a
warm affection for their native land and its reed-grown
lakes.
ir
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