CHAPTER VII. 



BAUL AND SAN FERNANDO. 



Over the Flooded Llanos. — Abundance of Animated Life. — On tlie Kio 

 Trinaco. — A Tropical Shower. — Sickness. — Arrival at Baul. — One of 

 the Party Homeward bound. — Sad Eeflections. — Stay at Baul. — Down 

 the Portuguesa. — Arrival at San Fernando. — The Town. — Preparations 

 for continuing our Voyage. — A Deliberate Crew. 



The sun was many degrees in the heavens "when a 

 voice summoned us from blissful slumber to partake of 

 the good fare so bountifully provided by the kind people 

 of the Llanos. The fragrant cafe, the hot com-cake, came 

 frita, or fried beef, with the oft-replenished calabash of 

 delicious milk, vrere luxuries fully appreciated. Depart- 

 ing from our hospitable friends and their island-like home, 

 lifted above the spreading waters, we jDushed on over the 

 inundated country — through tangled forest, thick jungles, 

 and open reaches, the abodes of millions of aquatic birds, 

 which displayed the greatest variety of species. Great 

 Avhite herons, some as tall as a man, were perched aloft 

 on the leafless branches of giant trees, standing erect in 

 couples upon their nest, like ghostly sentinels, guarding 

 the watery realms. Files of ducks stood stretched along 

 outspreading boughs,* and thousands more rustling up 



* Many species of ducks on the Llanos, contrary to the habit of those 

 birds with us, the wood-duck {Anas sponsa) excepted, perch with apparent 

 ease upon trees, which we have often seen loaded with them. 



