THE VAMPIRE. 235 



wing to wing extended, though I once killed one which measured 

 thirty-two inches. He frequents old abandoned houses and hollow 

 trees ; and sometimes a cluster of them may be seen in the forest 

 hanging head downwards from the branch of a tree. 



Although I was so long in Dutch Guiana, and visited the Orinoco 

 and Cayenne, and ranged through part of the interior of Portuguese 

 Guiana, still I could never find out how the vampires actually draw 

 the blood ; and, at this day, I am as ignorant of the real process as 

 though I had never been in the vampire's country. I should not 

 feel so mortified at my total failure in attempting the discovery, had 

 I not ma.de such diligent search after the vampire, and examined its 

 haunts. Europeans may consider as fabulous the stories related of 

 the vampire ; but, for my own part, I must believe in its powers of 

 sucking blood from living animals, as I have repeatedly . c een both 

 men and beasts which had been sucked, and, moreover, I have 

 examined very minutely their bleeding wounds. 



Some years ago I went to the river Paumaron with a Scotch 

 gentleman, by name Tarbet. We hung our hammocks in the 

 thatched loft of a planter's house. Next morning I heard this 

 gentleman muttering in his hammock, and now and then letting fall 

 an imprecation or two, just about the time he ought to have been 

 saying his morning prayers. " What is the matter, sir ? " said I, 

 softly ; " is there anything amiss ? " " What 's the matter !" answered 

 he, surlily; "why, the vampires have been sucking me to death." 

 As soon as there was light enough, I went to his hammock, and saw 

 it much stained with blood. " There ! " said he, thrusting his foot 

 out of the hammock, " see how these infernal imps have been drawing 

 my life's blood." On examining his foot, I found the vampire had 

 tapped his great toe ; there was a wound somewhat less than that 

 made by a leech ; the blood was still oozing from it ; I conjectured 

 he might have lost from ten to twelve ounces of blood. Whilst 

 examining it, I think I put him into a worse humour by remarking, 

 that a European surgeon would not have been so generous as to 

 have blooded him without making a charge. He looked up in my 

 face, but did not say a word : I saw that he was of opinion that I 

 had better have spared this piece of ill-timed levity. 



Wishful of having it in my power to say that I had been sucked 



