TEXAS NATURE OBSERVATIONS AND REMINISCENCES. 263 



landscape scene in olden days 

 when it was laden with man-high 

 tule-reed, and millions of wild 

 ducks and chattering; water-hens 

 gathered from their northern 

 flights inside the three mile long 

 tule-lake, to afford fine sport for 

 San Antonio hunters and other 

 sportsmen. Close to this same lake 

 scenery the writer, years ago, ex- 

 perienced a rather unpleasant oe- 

 curranee, not so easily forgotten, 

 as it concerned two of my inti- 

 mate friends, both business men 

 of San Antonio and lovers of an 

 occasional hunting trip to the lake. 



on to at intervals, their boat would 

 have upset, with perhaps loss of 

 life. But they managed to land 

 about two miles off where the 

 wind storm had drifted them and 

 rammed the boat into the shallow 

 water and mud which wet them 

 to the skin from head to foot. I 

 happened, luckily, to stay on the 

 shore and never before nor after- 

 ward did I foslier such fear for 

 the safety of two friends than on 

 this memorable day at Mitchell's 

 lake. 



Before my friends started their 

 periless hunting tour in the boat, 



Hunters on Lake During a Fearful Stormy Day 



It was a stormy morning that cer- 

 tain day and a fearful gale blew 

 over the tule jungles, upsetting 

 many of the small boats around 

 the shore and inside some of the 

 open tule spaces ; and during such 

 weather conditions it was that my 

 friends had ventured out, during 

 a more calm period, into the tule 

 spaces. But the swift hurricane 

 that followed gave the hunters in 

 their small shallow boat no chance 

 to return to shore, the wind storm 

 drifting them in an opposite di- 

 rection; and were it not for rea- 

 son of the high tule-reed to hold 



a photograph of which, with both 

 gentlemen therein, is reproduced 

 here). I prepared a camp fire of 

 which also a picture is seen in 

 these pages, showing another 

 hunting companion who is stoop- 

 ing over the fire and warming up 

 for action. This portion of Mit- 

 chell's lake is very close to the one 

 seen on the first photo, 

 showing a number of the 

 small boats and numerous water 

 fowls close to the mile-long tule 

 jungles„afine scenery and familiar 

 to anyone posted on the hunting 

 topography of old Mitchel's lake. 



