AT BREAKFAST. 193 



lent rifle by Lepage, which had already done good service 

 in my swan-hunting expedition. On the day after my 

 arrival at Edisto, taking with me a negro of the planta- 

 tion, I set forth to explore the ground, following up the 

 course of the lolof. 



In two hours I had the luck to see numerous flocks of 

 wild ducks, several pairs of pheasants, a dozen or so of 

 turkeys, two deer, and, better still, a catamount (cat of 

 the mountains), one of the most voracious of the North 

 American carnaria. Of all this game I killed my share, 

 and with a dozen trophies hanging on the shoulders of 

 Adonis, for such was my attendant's mythological name, 

 we returned to Mr. Dallifold's villa. 



During breakfast, my host proposed that I should 

 accompany him and his friends in a grand hunting ex- 

 cursion to the island of St. John, which lies contiguous 

 to Edisto, and whose woods are frequented by numbers 

 of the Virginian deer.* The project pleased me, and I 

 gladly assented to it. In the course of the day, my host 

 sent word to several of his neighbours ; and on the follow- 

 ing day, at five o'clock in the morning, we crossed in a 

 light boat the arm of the sea which separates Edisto from 

 St. John, to land in front of a little hut occupied as a 

 stable and stable-house by some negro keepers of a manada 

 of mustangs, belonging to Mr. Dallifold. 



The dogs were coupled, the horses saddled, the break- 

 fast served on a rustic table covered with a white cloth ; 



* This is a generic name given by Audubon to the noble animal described 

 by Gaston Phoebus and so many other authors. Observe, by the way, that 

 the stag of the United States is of about the same size and appearance as that of 

 France, and is only distinguished from the European kind by its antlers, 

 which are curved inwards, with the point towards the snout ; so that while the 

 European stag strikes and defends himself with raised head, the American 

 acts in an exactly opposite manner, like the hammer on the anvil 

 (414) 13 



