roprietor, who had gone away that day, the
fishing season being nearly over. He certainly was not expecting us,
and was taken somewhat by surprise; he had never seen a foreigner in
his life, and was by no means reassured when we told him that we had
come to shoot flamingoes and spoonbills. Our Indian gave him some
indistinct notion of our object, of which, however, he must have had a
very imperfect notion himself; and seeming to intimate that we were
beyond his comprehension, or, at all events, entirely too many for him,
the boy withdrew to the other division of the hut, and left us in full
possession. Instead of a rough night we were well provided for, but,
unfortunately, there was no ramon or water for the horses. We made an
affecting appeal to our young host, and he spared us part of a small
stock of maize, which he had on hand for the making of his own
tortillas, but they had to go without water, as none could be procured
at night.

In the gray of the morning we heard a loud quacking of ducks, which
almost lifted us out of our hammocks, and carried us out of doors.
Beyond the point of the little dock was a long sand-bank, covered with
immense flocks of these birds. Our host could not go with us till he
had examined his fishing nets, and Dimas had to take the horses to
water, but we pushed off with our Indian to set the canoe. Very soon we
found that he was not familiar with the place, or with the management
of a canoe, and, what was worse, we could not understand a word he
said. Below us the shore formed a large bay, with the Punta de Arenas,
or Point of Sand, projecting toward us, bordered down to the water's
edge with trees, and all over the bay were sand-banks, barely appearing
above water, and covered with wild fowl of every description known, in
numbers almost exceeding the powers of conception. In recurring to them
afterward, Doctor Cabot enumerated of ducks, the mallard, pin-tail,
blooming teal, widgeon, and gadwall; of bitterns, the American bittern,
least bittern, great and lesser egret, blue crane, great blue heron,
Louisiana heron, night heron, two kinds of rail, one clapper rail,
white ibis, willets, snipes, red-breasted snipe, least snipe,
semi-palmated sandpiper, black-breasted plover, marble godwit,
long-billed curlew, osprey or fish-hawk, black hawk, and other smaller
birds, of which we took no note, and all together, with their brilliant
plumage and varied notes, forming, as we passed among them, an