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Now, then one, two fire!" The two shots sounded almost at the same moment, and the birds fell over on to the ground. This double report put to flight all the spoonbills and cranes, and the lake was soon perfectly deserted. We now took the road leading to the "Palm-tree Villa," and l'Encuerado went on before us to take up his fishing-lines.
The hunters rode little stallions, and their hounds were gelded. Most of the time we were in forest or swampy jungle. Part of the time we crossed or skirted marshy plains. In one of them a herd of half- wild cattle was feeding. Herons, storks, ducks, and ibises were in these marshes, and we saw one flock of lovely roseate spoonbills.
They are all gone now. No longer do the ruffs trample the sedge into a hard floor in their fighting-rings, while the sober reeves stand round, admiring the tournament of their lovers, gay with ears and tippets, no two of them alike. Gone are ruffs and reeves, spoonbills, bitterns, avosets; the very snipe, one hears, disdains to breed.
I therefore halted, and sent Fraser into the reeds towards some dead trees, on which a number of spoonbills were sitting. He found that there was a small lake in the centre of the reeds, the resort of numerous wild fowl; but although the men were enabled to quench their thirst, we found it impossible to water the animals.
They gazed long at the wise looking owls who were blinking on a wall of masonry, which represented an old tower; then turned their attention to the swan and spoonbills, and other aquatic fowl sporting in the clear water of the lake, while on the shore marched the stately flamingoes, resembling red-coated soldiers.
The air resounded no longer with the piercing cries of herons, flamingos, and spoonbills, crossing in long files from one shore to the other. Our eyes sought in vain those waterfowls, the habits of which vary in each tribe. All nature appeared less animated.
They hastened down to the shores of this large inland sea, which was darkened with numberless birds of varied plumage ducks, geese, pelicans and cranes four or five feet high, immense spoonbills of snowy whiteness, yellow-legged plovers all quietly feeding at half pistol-shot. A large basket to supply their larder was soon filled.
To ride at noon on the hottest days, when the whole earth is a-glitter with illusory water, and see the cattle and horses in thousands, covering the plain at their watering-places; to visit some haunt of large birds at that still, hot hour and see storks, ibises, grey herons, egrets of a dazzling whiteness, and rose-coloured spoonbills and flamingoes, standing in the shallow water in which their motionless forms are reflected.
I only know that the old place where as a child I first knew him, where his cattle and horses grazed and the stream where they were watered was alive with herons and spoonbills, black-necked swans, glossy ibises in clouds, and great blue ibises with resounding voices, is now possessed by aliens, who destroy all wild bird life and grow corn on the land for the markets of Europe.
Fortunately there was an abundance of small game in the shape of wild ducks, pigeons, doves; and a great variety of birds such as herons, cranes, spoonbills, &c. Travellers should always take as large a supply of shot as possible. I had four hundred weight, and prodigious quantities of powder and caps: thus I could at all times kill sufficient game for ourselves and people.
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