210 THE COCAL. 



few miles off. The brown policeman, crossing an arm of the 

 Guanapo only a month or two before, had been frightened by 

 meeting one in the ford, which his excited imagination mag- 

 nified so mucli that its head was on the one bank while its 

 tail was on the other, a measurement which must, I think, 

 be divided at least by three. But in the very spot in which 

 we stood, some four years since happened what might have 

 been a painful tragedy. Four young ladies, whose names 

 were mentioned to me, preferred, not wisely, a bathe in the 

 still lagoon to one in the surf outside ; and as they disported 

 themselves, one of them felt herself seized from behind. 

 Fancying that one of her sisters was pla3dng tricks, she 

 called out to her to let her alone ; and looking up, saw, to her 

 astonishment, her three sisters sitting on the bank, and herself 

 alone. She looked back, and shrieked for help : and only just 

 in time ; for the Huillia had her. The other three girls, to 

 their honour, dashed in to her assistance. The brute had 

 luckily got hold, not of her poor little body, but of her 

 bathing-dress ; and held on stupidly. The girls pulled ; the 

 bathing dress, which was luckily of thin cotton, was torn off; 

 the HuilJin. slid back again with it in his mouth into the 

 dark labyrinth ol the mangrove-roots ; and the girl was saved. 

 Two minutes' delay, and his coils would have been round her ; 

 and all would have Deen over. 



The sudden daring of these lazy and stupid animals is very 



