Toward three or four o’clock in the morning I was startled by a tremendous noise. At first, just waking up, I could not make out what it was; when lo! I discovered it was made by parrots, chattering away in a most jolly and discordant manner. I had never heard such a noise in my life before. The Island must have been full of them. I tried in vain to sleep—turned myself one way, then the other, but it was of no avail; the noise was so terrific there was no rest for me. I don’t think a hundred bells tolling together could have made more noise. At any rate as they went on I wondered if they could understand each other, and how they could have come to the Island. They had probably arrived while I was asleep, just before sunset. Before the morning twilight came I was out, and as soon as the dawn of day made its appearance, flock after flock flew from the trees and went in different directions toward the main-land. I followed them as far as my eyes could reach, but soon lost sight of them, for they were going far away, very far away. They were in flocks, and each flock went in search of places where they knew food was abundant. They went off by tens, by twenties, and by hundreds together. By sunrise not a parrot was to be seen on the Island, and I could only hear the chatter of other birds. How silent then every thing seemed! During the day I went to the top of the hill in search of land shells, and after five o’clock in the afternoon the parrots began to arrive again. From the top of the hill I could see them as far as my eyes could reach: they were coming from immense distances. They continued pouring in and pouring in, and I should not wonder if some had come from thirty or forty miles, or perhaps even more. They came and they came, and they continued coming, even after the sun had set, and two flocks came when it was almost dark. These had probably come from far away and had miscalculated the time their flight would take; or perhaps they had been detained by some dainty fruit on the road. At any rate they came very late. I calculated that at least twenty thousand parrots had arrived on the Island, although there may have been one hundred thousand, for I do not claim to have counted them all. They came to spend the night on the Island of Nengue Ngozo, and I now ceased to wonder at the strange name the natives had given to the Island. These gray parrots are said to live to be a hundred years old and even more. Some years ago I myself knew a sea-captain in New York by the name of Brown, an old trader on the African coast, who had a parrot which he had kept for thirty years. I wish you could have heard him talk and sing songs. Captain Brown is dead, and I know not where his widow has gone, but perhaps the parrot is still living. I could not help thinking that some of these old parrots had come here every day, perhaps, for a hundred years.