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CHAP, iv.] WEST INDIES. 103 



" intervene; and even if they meet with a house they 

 " will attempt to scale the walls to keep the un- 

 " broken tenor of their way. But though this be the 

 " general order of their route, they, upon other oc- 

 " casions, are compelled to conform to the face of 

 " the country, and if it be intersected by rivers, they 

 " are seen to wind along the course of the stream. 

 The procession sets forward from the mountains 

 with the regularity of an army under the guidance 

 of an experienced commander. They are commonly 1 

 " divided into battalions, of which the first consists 

 " of the strongest and boldest males, that, like pi- 

 " oncers, march forward to clear the route and face 

 " the greatest dangers. The night is their chief time 

 " of proceeding, but if it rains by day they do not fail 

 " to profit by the occasion, and they continue to move 

 cc forward in their slow uniform manner. When the 

 " sun shines and is hot upon the surface of the ground, 

 " they make an universal halt, and wait till the cool 

 " of the evening. When they are terrified, they 

 " march back in a confused disorderly manner, hold- 

 " ing up their nippers, with which they sometimes 

 " tear off a piece of the skin, and leave the weapon 

 " where they inflicted the wound. 



" When after a fatiguing march, and escaping a 

 " thousand dangers, for they are sometimes three 

 " months in getting to the shore, they have arrived 

 " at their destined port, they prepare to cast their 

 " spawn. For this purpose the crab has no sooner 

 " reached the shore, than it eagerly goes to the edge 



