C Ihe Ladies c cu. V'VVAN - History and Classics, Department of

176 THE LADIES, THE GWICH'IN, AND THE RATpeace of mind. Pride, however, stiffened our attitude, so we turned slowly andwent off to find our cabin, not in the manner of persons beating a retreat butwith a deliberate sauntering air, as if we owned the ship."Must keep our end Up," muttered Gwen, who disliked crowds even more thanI did. In the solitude of our cabin she expressed herself more freely. "If thoseinquisitive Yanks go on staring at us," she said, "I shall take strong measures."I could guess only too well what those strong measures would be. Heavy bootsand shoes in a rucksack and the pack whirled round her head with increasingmomentum until she could stand alone and free in the middle of a crowd. Iremembered our arrival at Belgrade railway station and how, while I went off tomake enquiries, she had cleared off the clamorous touts and porters in thismanner until, when I returned, there was not a fez-crowned head to be seenwithin three yards of her. "The blighters came too close," she said.Mter supper on that first evening we leaned on the rail and watched the murkybrown current of the river beneath a blue-black sky as we swirled down pastcottonwood, spruce and poplar forest, noting each bend and level spit and cutbankintently, as if we were still navigating the river alone, but now our paceseemed terrific and we missed the rhythm of paddling our own canoe, Anonlooker's life is no life at all, we thought. In due course, we made a few friendsamong the passengers and some of these would act as spies, retailing, in order tomake us laugh, some of the things that the tourists said about us as they measuredus with their eyes."It's a wonder," said one, "that those ladies haven't lost their manners beingaway so long from civilization."Some thought we would have forgotten how to use a knife and fork and waitedeagerly for us to hold our meat in both hands and gnaw it. Others felt sure thatwe had lost all memory of the King's English, after hearing only heathen tonguesfor so long a time. A few were inclined to use gestures and pidgin English whenthey spoke to us, but we did not respond very heartily to these, so the rumour gotaround that, from constant association with Alaskan bears, we had become soreheadedand morose.Our first friend was a lad of the geological survey party, who had injured hisleg when working on the Porcupine and we had long talks with him about thatriver. Soon the passengers began to question him. "How did you penetrate thereserve of those two?" they asked.