WILD WINGS 
46 
liked to hide for an hour or two, to secure pictures of the shy- 
returning ibises as they alighted upon their nests. But already 
the day was waning, and we had the long, hard tramp before 
us. For want of time, another lake connected with this one 
was left une.xplored. 
How we suffered that day from thirst! We had been told 
that we could get fresh water here. But a combination of low 
water inland and high tides seaward had made the water 
brackish and poisonous. I became so parched climbing and 
photographing that I yielded to temjrtation, and was sorry 
enough, as for the next few days I lay in camp under a mos¬ 
quito-net sick with dysentery and fever. It was about eighty 
miles, two days’ sail, to the nearest medical aid, at Key West. 
Our vessel was gone, and another which we had engaged 
had not arrived. I seemed to be caught like a rat in a trap. 
But hnally raw white of egg — a good thing to remember 
— checked the dysentery, and I was at length able to resume 
the exploration, though for a time rather weak. 
A dry and thirsty land is Cape Sable, with all its swamps, 
overflowed as they are by the sea, and no drinking water 
to be had, save from the clouds. Our water-barrels were 
nearly emptv ; so one night, when a vessel had been secured, 
we dropped off the soap-fiat and sailed westward around Cape 
Sable and up near “ Middle Cape,” where at last we found a 
tolerable well, from which to fill the casks. Along the “ Capes ” 
there are no mud-fiats, but deep water extends close in to the 
fine beach of shell-sand. Here a chain of lakes ap}:)roaches 
verv near the coast, and we took the oi^portunity to explore 
them. The lone settler here kindly lent us his boat, a fiat 
scow, propelled by poling. These lakes are the resorts of large 
numbers of the American White Pelicans, that usually breed 
in the far North. Yet i was not without hope that jxissibly 
we might find them nesting in this Southern wilderness. 
