ence came a sibilant murmur like the hissing of many
snakes. Desert as I call it, it was not entirely featureless. Its
colour varied from light fawn, where the highest levels had dried in
the wind, to brown or deep violet, where it was still wet, and
slate-grey where patches of mud soiled its clean bosom. Here and
there were pools of water, smitten into ripples by the impotent wind;
here and there it was speckled by shells and seaweed. And close to
us, beginning to bend away towards that hissing knot in the
north-west, wound our poor little channel, mercilessly exposed as a
stagnant, muddy ditch with scarcely a foot of water, not deep enough
to hide our small kedge-anchor, which perked up one fluke in impudent
mockery. The dull, hard sky, the wind moaning in the rigging as
though crying in despair for a prey that had escaped it, made the
scene inexpressibly forlorn.

Davies scanned it with gusto for a moment, climbed to a point of
vantage on the boom, and swept his glasses to and fro along the
course of the channel.

'Fairly well boomed,' he said, meditatively, 'but one or two are very
much out. By Jove! that's a tricky bend there.' He took a bearing
with the compass, made a note or two, and sprang with a vigorous leap
down on to the sand.

This, I may say, was the only way of 'going ashore' that he really
liked. We raced off as fast as our clumsy sea-boots would let us, and
followed up the course of our channel to the west, reconnoitring the
road we should have to follow when the tide rose.

'The only way to learn a place like this,' he shouted, 'is to see it
at low water. The banks are dry then, and the channels are plain.
Look at that boom'--he stopped and pointed contemptuously--'it's all
out of place. I suppose the channel's shifted there. It's just at an
important bend too. If you took it as a guide when the water was up
you'd run aground.'

'Which would be very useful,' I observed.

'Oh, hang it!' he laughed, 'we're exploring. I want to be able to run
through this channel without a mistake. We will, next time.' He
stopped, and plied compass and notebook. Then we raced on till the
next halt was called.

'Look,' he said, the channel's getting deeper, it was nearly dry a
moment ago; see the current in it now? That's the flood tide coming
up--from the _west,_ mind you; that is, from the Weser side. That
shows we're past the watershed.'

'Watershed?' I repeated, blankly.

'Yes, that's what I call it. You