Dr. Ob at last decided to commandeer a cocked hat boat rowed by four
women with which to navigate the river to Rieka, and thence by carriage
to Cettinje if carriages came. It was six p.m., we might reach Rieka by
ten.
We rowed out through the half-sunken trees. At the end of a spit of land
was a man gnawing a piece of raw beef. We shouted to him to ask what he
was doing; and he answered that he was curing his malaria. The two women
in the bow were very pretty, one was a mere child.
There were wisps of sunset cloud in the sky, and soon night came quite
down.
As it grew dark all sense of motion disappeared. The boat shrugged
uneasily with the movement of the oars, the rowlocks made of loops of
twisted osier creaked, but one could not perceive that one was going
forwards. The hills lost their solidity, becoming mere holes in the grey
blue of the sky, a bright planet made a light smudge on the ruffled
water in which the stars could not reflect. As we crept forwards into
the river and the mountains closed in, the water became more calm, and
the stars came out one by one beneath us, while in the ripple of our
wake the image of the planet ran up continuously in strings of little
golden balls like a juggling trick.
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