144 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 



could be seen all the day patiently watching for their prey in the 

 shallows. Fancy could not picture a more suitable home for the 

 water-fowl, whose food was abundant in the matted grass and 

 succulent weeds, and who hid in bending rushes for better shelter 

 from the northerly winds. 



Up this extended marsh our boats gently floated, each one 

 following the openings that seemed best, and diverging so as to 

 form an extended front. The negroes shipped their long oars, and 

 used only the paddle, in order to move with greater stillness, and 

 to pass through the narrow openings. As we advanced, I soon 

 lost sight of the other boats, but from time to time could tell their 

 position from^the report of their guns and the rising of the ducks 

 they disturbed. I had changed positions with the men, taking the 

 bow of the boat, and letting them paddle in the stern. 



" Dar, Maussa, black duck ! " whispered Scipio, after we had 

 paddled a short distance, changing with a wave of his paddle the 

 direction of the canoe, and pointing it toward a mass of reeds that 

 lay twisted and broken together, as though some wind had twisted 

 them off half way up. 



I pointed my hand inquiringly to the reeds. Scipio nodded, 

 and the boat floated noiselessly as a fish. We were close by them 

 and no sign of the game, save a feather or two on the water. The 

 neighbouring tufts of grass shut out the wind, and it was warm 

 and still, like summer in the grassy bower, while bright little fish 

 darted aside on either bow of the boat. Then came a flopping 

 sound, a rattle of the reeds, and the brazen cry that so many 

 thousand times, in a thousand hearts, has sent the blood leaping 

 with its memory-haunted tone, "Qua-ack! qua-ack! quack!" Some 

 notes in this world are clearer, and some more rhythmic, but there 

 are few that when repeated will so picture to the mind, in the 

 twinkling of an eye, the extended reach of sedge, the downy reeds, 

 glassy water, and young hopes, with which it is so associated. 



With the alarm-cry two ducks broke forth, scattering the floss 

 of the cat-tails in clouds about them, their long necks stretching 

 out as though straining to be away. I aimed at the drake as he 

 poised himself to bear away, and with the report of the piece he 

 fell, head and wings pendent, with a splash on the water — a dead 



