If these accounts of our troubles with Custom-house officials and the military give an impression that such experiences seriously interfered with the enjoyment of our trip, a false idea has certainly been conveyed. We were annoyed at times, it must be confessed, but whenever we paused to reflect, we remembered that we took no chances in our favor. We were travelling between two frontiers rigorously guarded and vigilantly watched to prevent smuggling, and whenever we went ashore made no effort to appear in the character of tourists, but with our stained garments, weather-beaten hats, and ragged boating-shoes exposed ourselves to the same delays, inconveniences, and discourteous treatment which the inhabitants themselves suffer in their dealings with the official class, not only in this but in many other parts of Europe. It is undoubtedly true that if we had landed at Ismail in smart yachting uniform, or perhaps even with a coat on, we should have had little or no difficulty with any one from the fussy autocrat at the landing to the bantam clerk at the police headquarters. Indeed, after all was said and done, we had experienced, even in these last few days, no greater annoyance than we had endured at the frontier of Germany on our way to Donaueschingen, where our baggage, part of it being of unusual shape, was examined with great deliberation and minute curiosity, and we were at last obliged to pay sixteen pfennigs duty on two tins of cocoatina and a pot of vaseline, the only canoe stores we had with us. Whatever disagreeable happened in our visits to the towns we always speedily [Illustration: FISHING-HUT AMONG THE REEDS] forgot when we reached camp, for there we were generally quite free and undisturbed and, moreover, exceedingly comfortable. We travelled from the very start on the principle that we could see more and work better if we treated ourselves well, and we therefore scorned neither comforts nor luxuries, made every reasonable effort to have regular meals and a varied bill of fare, and never, under any circumstances, neglected to keep our outfit clean and in good order. This may sound as if our out-of-door life was not what is usually called “roughing it,” and it certainly was not, if we accept the common definition of the term as qualifying the experiences of the raw recruit, the apprentice sailor, and the amateur camper. We found the maxim of the best men in the hunting field: “When the hounds are not running, never take a fence unless you are obliged to,” applied equally well to our excursion, and we therefore never roughed it unless we were compelled to do so by circumstances. In the whole extent of our trip, among all the novel scenes and the unique and interesting experiences, every incident of our camp life remains perfectly fresh in our memory.