t, and walked on till
evening. We came to a plantation on the point of the creek where
Richard Adams lived on the opposite side, being now on the Great Bay
about four miles below where we had to be. We were strangers here, and
had no address to these people, who, nevertheless, showed us every
kindness and treated us well. They told us we had lost the way at the
empty house, by taking the road to the left instead of the right.

_10th, Sunday._ The son, who went out to shoot at daylight, put us on
the road which would lead us to the creek directly opposite Richard
Adams's house, taking us back to the empty plantation which we now
left on the right hand. We arrived at the place about eight o'clock,
and were taken over the creek by Richard Adams himself. He and his
wife were glad to see us, and bade us welcome. As it was Sunday, and
we had promised to write a letter to Holland for his wife, we remained
there this day, writing the letter after dinner, and having time also
to look around a little. These people were so delighted at the service
we were to do them in Holland, of posting a letter to Steenwyk,[247]
and sending an answer back to them, that they did not know what to do
for us. He gave us some French brandy to drink, which he had purchased
of the captains of the ships who had brought it from England; but as
it was an article prohibited on pain of forfeiture, it was not to be
bought here, and scarcely anything else, for he had made a useless
journey below, not being able to obtain shoes and stockings for his
little children who were bare-legged.

[Footnote 247: Steenwijk is in Overyssel.]

I have nowhere seen so many ducks together as were in the creek in
front of this house. The water was so black with them that it seemed
when you looked from the land below upon the water, as if it were a
mass of filth or turf, and when they flew up there was a rushing and
vibration of the air like a great storm coming through the trees, and
even like the rumbling of distant thunder, while the sky over the
whole creek was filled with them like a cloud, or as the starlings fly
at harvest time in Fatherland. There was a boy about twelve years old
who took aim at them from the shore, not being able to get within good
shooting distance of them, but nevertheless shot loosely before they
flew away, and hit only three or four, complained of his shot, as they
are accustomed to shoot from six to twelve and even eighteen and more
at one sho