PREPARING FOR THE SPORT. 131 



company of sixty hunters had just installed themselves 

 in the environs, escorted by vehicles loaded with provi- 

 sions and warlike munitions. They had raised their 

 tents, and a couple of negro cooks were preparing the 

 dinner. Among them were two Glasgow farmers, who 

 had brought a herd of three hundred pigs to fatten upon 

 pigeons, and thus, in a very short time, fit them for the 

 market. On my arrival in the camp I was astonished, 

 nay, stupified, by the quantity of slaughtered pigeons 

 which strewed the ground. Fifteen women were engaged 

 in plucking them, cleansing and salting them, and pack- 

 ing them in barrels. What surprised me most was to 

 learn from the hunters that, though the roosting-place 

 was empty through the day, every night it was covered 

 with myriads of pigeons returning from Indiana, where 

 they had spent the day in the vicinity of the village of 

 Coridon, thus accomplishing a flight of one hundred 

 leagues. It is useless to say that next morning they re- 

 sumed the same route at early dawn. The ground over 

 the whole area of the roosting-place was covered with 

 guano, one or two inches thick. At your first view of 

 this gray-coloured soil, these denuded trees their branches 

 leafless and without sap you would have supposed that 

 it was already the middle of winter, or that some tornado 

 had devastated the forest and withered the surrounding 

 scenery. 



The hunters began their sport in the evening, and lost 

 no time in making the necessary preparations. Some 

 packed up sulphur in small iron pots; others armed 

 themselves with long poles, like bakers' peels ; some 

 carried torches made of resin and branches of pine ; 



