anks of the
boat, which lay on the deck keel uppermost. In this crazy boat, we had
scarcely got a quarter of a league from the ship, when the water rushed
in so forcibly through all the cracks and fissures, that it was soon
more than ankle deep. Unluckily the sailors had forgotten to put on
board a bucket or anything for baling out the water, so that we were
obliged to use our hats and boots for that purpose. Fourteen persons
were crowded together in this leaky boat, and the water continued
rising, until at length we began to be seriously apprehensive for our
safety, when, fortunately, our situation was observed by the people on
shore. They promptly prepared to send out a boat to our assistance, but
just as it was got afloat, we succeeded in reaching the pier, happy once
more to set our feet on _terra firma_.

Our first business was to seek shelter and refreshment. There is no
tavern in San Carlos, but there is a sort of substitute for one, kept
by an old Corsican, named Filippi, where captains of ships usually
take up their quarters. Filippi, who recognized an old acquaintance in
one of our party, received us very kindly, and showed us to apartments
which certainly had no claim to the merits of either cleanliness or
convenience. They were long, dark, quadrangular rooms, without
windows, and were destitute of any article of furniture, except a bed
in a kind of recess.

As soon as I got on shore, I saw a multitude of small birds of prey.
They keep in flocks, like our sparrows, hopping about everywhere, and
perching on the hedges and house-tops. I anxiously wished for an
opportunity to make myself better acquainted with one of them.
Presuming that shooting in the town might be displeasing to the
inhabitants, who would naturally claim to themselves a sort of
exclusive sporting right, I took my gun down to the sea-shore, and
there shot one of the birds. It belonged to the Gyr-Falcon family
(_Polyboriniae_), and was one of the species peculiar to South America
(_Polyborus chimango_, Vieil). The whole of the upper part of the body
is brown, but single feathers here and there have a whitish-brown
edge. On the tail are several indistinct oblique stripes. The
under-part of the body is whitish-brown, and is also marked with
transverse stripes feebly defined. The bird I shot measured from the
point of the beak to the end of the tail 1 foot 6-1/2 inches. Though
these Gyr-Falcons live socially together, yet they are very greedy an