NORTH AMERICA. 
247 
curing the young freakifh horfes. The next day- 
was employed in like manner, breaking and tutor- 
ing the young fleeds to their duty. The day fol- 
lowing we took a final leave of this land of mea- 
dows, lakes, groves and grottos, directing our courfe 
for the trading path, Having traverfed a country, 
in appearance, little differing from the region ly- 
ing upon Little St. Juan, we gained about twelve 
miles on our way ; and in the evening encamped on 
a narrow ridge, dividing two favannas from each 
other, near the edge of a deep pond ; here our peo- 
ple made a large pen or pound to fecure their wild 
horfes during the night. There was a little horn- 
mock or iflet containing a few acres of high ground, 
at fome diftance from the more, in the drowned 
favanna, almoit every tree of which was loaded with 
nefts of various tribes of water fowl, as ardea alba, 
ar. violacea, ar. cerulea, ar. fteilaris criltata, ai% 
fiellarts maxima, ar. virefcens, colymbnSg tantalus, 
mergus and others ; thefe nefts were all alive with 
young, generally almoft full grown, not yet fledg- 
ed, but covered with whitiili or cream coloured 
foft down. We vifited this bird ille, and fome of 
our people taking flicks or poles with them, foon 
beat down, and loaded themfelves with thefe fquabs, 
and returned to camp ; they were almoft a lump oi 
fat, and made us a rich fnpper ; fome we roafted ? 
and made others into a pilloe with rice : moli of 
them, except the bitterns and tantali, w r ere fo ex^ 
cefnvely fifhy in taft.e and fmell, I could not reiim 
them. It is incredible what prodigious numbers 
there were, old and young, on this little ine't, and 
the confufed noife which they kept up continually, 
the young crying for food inceiTantly, even whilffc 
in their throats, and the old alarmed and difpleafed 
at our near residence, and the depredations we had 
made 
