666 THE UNIVERSE. 



the graveyards. Man himself is not safe from their vorac- 

 ity. When some traveller, overtaken by night, falls asleep 

 in the open air, he wakes in the morning greatly exhausted, 

 scarcely able to stand upright, and finds one of his feet in a 

 pool of blood. This is the work of the vampires, as they 



247. Travellers attacked by Vampires. 



are called, which have assailed him during the night with so 

 much skill and precaution that he has not been even awak- 

 ened by their punctures. 1 



1 It is really from their habit of sucking the blood of animals that naturalists 

 have given them the name of vampire. La Condamine asserts that they exhausted 

 and destroyed the earliest troops of cattle and sheep which were imported into 

 some regions of America. Man himself is not safe from the attacks of these bats. 

 The traveller Azara was several times bitten when sleeping without shelter. The 

 wound is like that of a leech, and is not perceived till waking, when the feeble- 

 ness which results is felt, and the blood is seen all round. 



