NORTH AMERICAs 
2. 47 
curing the young freakifh horfes. The next day 
was employed in like manner, breaking and tutor- 
ing the young deeds 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 focure 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 fhore, in the drowned 
favanna, almoft every tree of which was loaded with 
nefts of various tribes of water fowl, as ardea alba, 
ar. violacea, ar. cerulea, ar. foeUaris criftata, ar. 
fteliaris maxima, ar. virefcens, colymbus, tantalus, 
jnergus and others ; thefe nefts were all alive with 
young, generally almoft full grown, not yet fledg- 
ed, but covered with whitifh or cream coloured 
foft down. We viflted this bird ifle, and fome of 
our people taking (ticks or poles with them, foon 
beat down, and loaded themfelves with thefe fquabs, 
and returned to camp ; they were almoft a lump of 
fat, and made us a rich fupper ; fome we roafted, 
and made others into a pilloe with rice : moft of 
them, except the bitterns and tantali, were fo ex- 
eeflively fifhy in tafte and fmell, I could not relifh. 
them. It is incredible what prodigious numbers 
there were, old and young, on this little iflet, and 
the confufed noife which they kept up continually, 
the young crying for food inceffantly, even whilft 
in their throats, and the old alarmed and difpleafed 
at our near refidence, and the depredations we had 
R 4 made 
f > & » > . • , V. 
