202 SLAUGHTERING THE YOUNG ALCATRAS. 



probably never had any communication with each other 

 furnish the most Btriking analogies in the means they 

 employ in exercising their empire over animals. 



It was three days before the travellers could leave this 

 labyrinth of Gardens and Bowers. At night they lay at 

 anchor; by day they visited the islands, or chains of 

 rock, that were most easily accessible. 



One day while they were employed in herborizing on 

 the Cayo Bonito, their sailors were searching among 

 the rocks for lobsters. Disappointed at not finding 

 lobsters there, they avenged themselves by climbing on 

 the mangroves and making a dreadful slaughter of the 

 young alcatras, grouped in pairs in their nests. With 

 the want of foresight peculiar to the great pelagic birds, 

 the alcatra builds his nest where several branches of trees 

 unite together. Humboldt and Bonpland counted four 

 or five nests on the same trunk of a mangrove. The 

 young birds defended themselves valiantly with their 

 enormous beaks, which were six or seven inches long ; 

 the old ones hovered over their heads, making hoarse and 

 plaintive cries. -Blood streamed from the tops of the 

 trees, for the sailors were armed with great sticks and 

 cutlasses. In vain were they reproved for this crueltv. 

 Condemned to long obedience in the solitude of the seas, 

 they felt pleasure in exercising a cruel tyranny over 

 animals, when occasion offered. The ground was 

 covered with wounded birds struggling in death. At 

 the arrival of the sailors a profound calm prevailed in 

 this secluded spot; when they left, everything seemed to 

 say: Man has passed this way. 



They sailed along the coast keeping two or three miles 

 distant from land. On the 13th, a little before sunset, 



