IX THE CAPE SABLE WILDERNESS 
59 
the dim twilight, staggering along with a back-load of stiih, 
we returned to our mule tied to the palm-tree. Poor beast, 
those Cape Sable horse-flies had reduced him to a sorry 
state, despite his suit of armor. His legs were dripping with 
blood, and he was so frantic with pain that it was at great 
risk that we harnessed him and avoided the flying hoofs. 
SPOONBILL AND IBIS WATCHING THE INTRUDERS 
Accounts which I have seen, by naturalists who have 
skirted the coast about Cape Sable and Barnes’s Sound, de¬ 
scribe it as “ a forbidding and awful wilderness.” The inter¬ 
minable swamp with its always impenetrable jungle of man¬ 
groves and other low trees extends to the verv water’s edge. 
To make a landing, one must wade a long distance through 
the sticky mud, and begin the ceaseless battle with the insect 
pests. During the summer it rains heavily nearly every day, 
