at the marshes around were covered
with a thick sheet of ice. We made our preparations for departure, but
upon collecting the various articles, a handkerchief was missing. We
remembered that we had imprudently hung it upon the grating at the
entrance of the Miao, so that it was half in and half out of the
building. No person had been near the place, except the man who had come
to pay his devotions to the idol. We could, therefore, without much
rashness, attribute the robbery to him, and this explained why he had
made his exit so rapidly, without replying to Samdadchiemba. We could
easily have found the man, for he was one of the fishermen engaged upon
the station, but it would have been a fruitless labour. Our only
effectual course would have been to seize the thief in the fact.

Next morning, we placed our baggage upon the camels, and proceeded to the
river side, fully persuaded that we had a miserable day before us. The
camels having a horror of the water, it is sometimes impossible to make
them get into a boat. You may pull their noses, or nearly kill them with
blows, yet not make them advance a step; they would die sooner. The boat
before us seemed especially to present almost insurmountable obstacles.
It was not flat and large, like those which generally serve as
ferry-boats. Its sides were very high, so that the animals were obliged
to leap over them at the risk and peril of breaking their legs. If you
wanted to move a carriage into it, you had first of all to pull the
vehicle to pieces.

The boatmen had already taken hold of our baggage, for the purpose of
conveying it into their abominable vehicle, but we stopped them. "Wait a
moment; we must first try and get the camels in. If they won't enter the
boat, there is no use in placing the baggage in it." "Whence came your
camels, that they can't get into people's boats?" "It matters little
whence they came; what we tell you is that the tall white camel has never
hitherto consented to cross any river, even in a flat boat." "Tall camel
or short, flat boat or high boat, into the boat the camel shall go," and
so saying, the ferryman ran and fetched an immense cudgel. "Catch hold
of the string in the camel's nose," cried he to a companion. "We'll see
if we can't make the brute get into the boat." The man in the boat
hauled at the string; the man behind beat the animal vehemently on the
legs with his cudgel, but all to no purpose; the poor camel sent fo