I98 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 



perience with the snakes had satisfied him. The 

 attendants of the party had related to him the idle 

 tale current among the negroes of the coast, namely, 

 that the first individual who saw the soufriere-bird 

 would surely die. Much more was the danger in- 

 creased when the bird should be killed ; and with 

 what vengeance dire the evil spirits would visit the 

 author of its death, they hesitated, shuddered even, 

 to think. Consequently Toby was in trepidation ; 

 his spirit was perturbed. Sullenly he performed his 

 daily work. He even hesitated to go for water to the 

 spring on the mountain-side — to ''Jacob's well" — 

 which gushed from under a huge bowlder, forming a 

 little pool, half a mile from the cave. He was com- 

 pletely demoralized, and the incessant rain made him 

 disconsolate ; he sat in his corner resting his chin on 

 his hand, his nose on his lips, nodding assent to his 

 inward cogitations in a manner that boded no good to 

 my enterprise. 



He had constructed a little shelter of sticks and 

 leaves in a corner of the cave, where he slept by 

 night on a scanty layer of leaves, and drowsed by 

 day. The second day he informed me that he felt 

 it imperative to go down to see his " stock ; " that he 

 had left his "stock" with no one to "care fur dem," — 

 a "pig high like dat" — measuring a distance of about 

 a foot above the ground, — " one high like di's, an' one 

 high so, sah." After this, I noticed that his anxiety 

 for his stock increased with the inclemency of the 

 weather. Altogether, I do not think Toby enjoyed 

 his residence on the mountain-top, especially as he 

 looked forward to the death of the bird with fear, 

 while I could only think of it with feelings of lively 



