88 SAVON ETTA. 



glasses, and the long single arms wliicli each brandished, 

 with frightful menaces, as of infuriated Xelsons, I burst into 

 such a fit of laughter that I nearly fell out into the mud. 

 The Xegros thought for the instant that the *' buccra parson " 

 had gone mad : but when I pointed with my head (I dare not 

 move a finger) to the crabs, off they went in a true Negro 

 guffaw, which, when once begun, goes on and on, like thunder 

 echoing round the mountains, and can no more stop itself 

 than a Blackcap's song. So all the way across the mud the 

 jolly fellows, working meanwhile like horses, laughed for 

 the mere pleasure of laughing ; and wlien \ve got to the boat, 

 the Xegro in charge of her saw us laughing, and laughed too 

 for company, without waiting to hear the joke ; and as two 

 of them took the canoe home, we could hear them laughincr 

 still in the distance, till the lonely loathsome place rang 

 again. I plead guilty to having given the men, as payment, 

 not only for their work but for their jollity, just twice what 

 they asked, which, after all, was very little. 



But what are Calling-Crabs ? I must ask the reader to 

 conceive a moderate-sized crab, the front of whose carapace is 

 very broad and almost straight, with a channel along it, in 

 which lie, right and left, his two eyes, each on a footstalk half 

 as long as the breadth of his body ; so that the crab, when at 

 rest, carries his eyes as epaulettes, and peeps out at the joint 

 of each shoulder. But when business is to be done, the eye- 



