A MONSTER MULTITUDE. 257 



head; her enormous eyes, motionless and prominent, seemed 

 bursting with malignant spleen ; her antlers quivered with rage, 

 and, pointing towards us her blood-extracting weapon, straight 

 and long as the stiletto of Italian bandit, she seemed about to 

 plunge it in our heart ! We started to our feet in terror ; and 

 at that instant a sudden gloom, as of coming twilight, over- 

 spread the sky, while a flapping as of the canvass of ten 

 thousand vessels proceeded from a winged multitude, mon- 

 strous now in bulk as in number, which filled the air. At- 

 tempting to escape, we nearly stumbled over not a stone but 

 an enormous beetle (bigger than the biggest turtle ever cap- 

 tured on the shores of the Antilles), and only regained our 

 footing to tread upon the loathsome yielding body of a cater- 

 pillar swollen to a serpent's size, and rolling its mutilated 

 length about our ankles. All around, the darkened day-light 

 presented only similar objects, half-revealed : ground, grass, 

 flower, shrub, and tree, all laden or crushed by living masses 

 through which we had, if possible, to force our way in order 

 to gain the shelter of our roof. Armed by desperation, we 

 continued to advance ; and what an advance it was ! Pierced 

 by poisoned arrows, swords, and spears, in the shape of what, 

 as stings, we once despised lacerated by forcep-jaws armed 

 with shark-like teeth bruised by violent contact with the 

 mail-clad limbs of grasshopper Goliahs and beetle Bevis's- 

 deafened and bewildered by sounds most strange and threaten- 

 ing, and of volume augmented in proportion to their utterer's 



