BACK TO BARRANQUILLA. 129 



Thursday, July 21, 1892. Cabell and I had arranc^ed for a man 

 to come and take us out in a boat early this mornino-, so we mi<>-ht 

 get some waterfowl ; but although we were ready by five o'clock, 

 he failed to appear. About seven we walked around to the market, 

 where, after considerable inquiry, we managed to find a man and a 

 boy, who took us out in a large dug-out. We started about half 

 past seven, and went through a large ditch or canal, which ran 

 across a marshy tract for over a mile, until it opened into the 

 Magdalena. Here we turned up-stream, and hugged the shore 

 closely so that our boat could be poled along. On our way in the 

 canal we came across the badly decomposed body of a very large 

 alligator, in whose jaws a few teeth yet remained, which our boat- 

 man pulled out for us. As we turned a bend in the canal, we saw 

 coming towards us a boat-load of natives transporting cattle in a 

 most curious way. The boat was a huge dug-out, but was so nar- 

 row that four or five bullocks would have filled it, so the boatmen 

 had devised a peculiar plan. They had lashed across the boat, at 

 equal distances apart, three long poles that projected like out-rig- 

 gers ten feet or more on either side. These poles were probably 

 about a foot above the surface of the water. The cattle were 

 driven into the water until they were swimming, and then their 

 horns were lashed firmly to the poles. For each pole there were 

 eight bullocks, — fo^^u* on a side, making twenty-four in all. The 

 boat was poled along by the crew, the cattle swimming, and the 

 poles keeping their heads above water, so that they could not 

 drown. 



We had hardly left the canal when I shot, on a mud flat, a small 

 grayish heron. It was smaller than our green heron, but quite 

 similar in coloration, the top of its head dark ; its back and wings 

 the same greenish gray, with lighter edgings to the feathers ; the 

 neck light and streaked below {Butorides cyanurus). This bird 

 was unfortunately stolen by a cat at the hotel before I had skinned 

 it. At this same spot I saw standing, on a strip of mud by a pool 

 in the marsh, one of the white-winged jaganas that are so common 



