‘186 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
rected towards the water, but on high, where flew some 
thousands of snowy Pelicans, which had fled affrighted from 
their resting grounds. How beautifully they performed their 
broad gyrations, and how matchless, after awhile, was the 
marshalling of their files, as they flew past us! 
. On the tide we proceeded apace. Myriads of Cormorants 
covered the face of the waters, and over it Fish-Crows innu- 
merable were already arriving from their distant roosts. 
We landed at one place to search for the birds whose charm- 
‘ing melodies had engaged our attention, and here and there 
some young Eagles we shot, to add to our store of fresh pro- 
visions! The river did not seem to me equal in beauty to 
the fair Ohio; the shores were in many places low and swampy, 
to the great delight of the numberless Herons that moved 
along in gracefulness, and the grim alligators that swam in 
sluggish sullenness. In going up a bayou, we caught a great 
number of the young of the latter for the purpose of making 
experiments upon them. 
After sailing a considerable way, during which our com- 
mander and officers took the soundings, as well as the angles 
and bearings of every nook and crook of the sinuous stream, 
we anchored one evening at a distance of fully one hundred 
miles from the mouth of the river. The weather, although it 
was the 12th of February, was quite warm, the thermometer 
on board standing at 75°, and on shore at 90°. The fog 
was so thick that neither of the shores could be seen, and 
yet the river was not a mile in breadth. The “blind mus- 
quitoes” covered every object, even in the cabin, and so won- 
derfully abundant were these tormentors, that they more 
than once fairly extinguished the candles whilst I was writing 
my journal, which I closed in despair, crushing between the 
leaves more than a hundred of the little wretches. Bad as 
they are, however, these blind musquitoes do not bite. As if 
purposely to render our situation doubly uncomfortable, there 
was an establishment for jerking beef, on the nearer shores 
