In the fields round
Kunis the poppies flared, and the iris bordered the fields with a ribbon
of royal purple.
We reached Kunis at two o'clock, and found the village half submerged, the
water being up and over the low shores from the recent rain. Our boats
were moored in a clump of willows, whose feet stood so deeply in the water
that we had to embark on pony-back! After lunch came the usual difference
of opinion with the Admiral, who seems to have great difficulty in
grasping the fact that our will is law as to times and seasons for sailing.
He always assumes the role of passive resister, and is always defeated
with ignominy. He insisted that it was too late to think of reaching
Bandipur, but we maintained that we could get at any rate part of the way;
so he cast off from his willow-tree, and sulkily poked and poled out into
the Wular, taking uncommon good care to hug the shore with fervour.
Here and there a group of willows standing far out into the lake, or a
half-drowned village, drove us out into the open water, and once when,
like a latter-day Vasco de Gama, the Admiral was striving to double the
dreadful promontory of a water-logged fence, a puff of wind fell upon us,
lashing the smooth water into ripples, whereupon the crew lost their wits
with fright, and the lady mariners in the cook-boat set up a dismal
howling; the ark, taking charge, crashed through the fence, her way
carrying us to the very door of a frontier villa of an amphibious village.
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