After a short paddle down a pleasant reach under perpendicular bluffs on the Russian shore, past frequent irrigating machines ingeniously constructed to lift the water upon the high plateau, we came out into a perfectly flat country partly wooded on either side. The strong north-east wind which had been blowing almost continuously for days gave us no rest, and raised a choppy sea which seriously checked our speed. About ten miles below Ismail the river divides into three parts, which join into one stream at Kilia fifteen miles farther on. We planned to camp somewhere above the latter town, and chose the central passage as probably the most direct one. For the rest of the afternoon we worked steadily, expecting to come in sight of Kilia long before sunset. A swampy wilderness surrounded us, and not a yard of solid earth did we see. The frontier runs along the northerly limit of the delta on the banks of the smallest of the three lesser arms just described, and we therefore did not even have the company of the picket stations. Indeed, the only human habitations we came across were at a fishing-camp, where several rude huts were scattered about among the reeds and willows, their mud-floors scarcely a foot above the level of the water. It began to rain, and heavy storm-clouds, driven by the rising gale, swept over the whole sky. The sun went down and we had left the region of willows, and now saw nothing but reeds on all sides of us. Soon the gathering twilight drove us to seek a camp, although the domes of Kilia were not yet in sight. The only place we could find after a long search was a small clearing among the reeds on the left bank, where some fisherman had dried the stalks for floats to his nets. Here we hauled up the canoes, settled them firmly in the soft mud of the marsh, bow to bow, at an angle with each other, and, spreading a thick layer of freshly-cut reeds over the triangular space between the canoes and the edge of the bank, put up our tents and built a fire. The latter operation was not so easy as it sounds, for all the wood we could find was the water-soaked branches of willow which we broke from the snags or pulled out of the ooze of the banks. We were, however, prepared for just such an emergency and, lighting an ordinary little wire-gauze spirit-lamp, arranged the smallest twigs over the frame so they soon dried, then caught fire, and by their heat dried others, until we shortly had enough strength of flame to kindle the large pieces of sodden wood. Sheltered from the rain by our sketching umbrellas in the lee of the canoe tents, we cooked an elaborate dinner of several courses, and enjoyed as comfortable a meal as if our camp had been made on the sound turf of an English meadow. As for our snug beds, they were quite as dry and warm as at any other bivouac, notwithstanding the fact that the canoes were lying in a slough of black mire. [Illustration: A LATE CAMP]