38 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA 



or prudent to return, the goat remained in the 

 same place where he had killed it ; it had begun to 

 putrefy, and the vultures had arrived that morn- 

 ing to claim the savoury morsel. 



At the close of day, the Vampires leave the 

 hollow trees, whither they had fled at the morn- 

 ing's dawn, and scour along the river's banks in 

 quest of prey. On waking from sleep, the as- 

 tonished traveller finds his hammock all stained 

 with blood. It is the vampire that hath sucked 

 him. Not man alone, but every unprotected 

 animal, is exposed to his depredations: and so 

 gently does this nocturnal surgeon draw the 

 blood, that instead of being roused, the patient is 

 lulled into a still profounder sleep. There are 

 two species of vampire in Demerara, and both 

 suck living animals ; one is rather larger than the 

 common bat; the other measures above two feet 

 from wing to wing extended. 



Snakes are frequently met with in the woods 

 betwixt the sea-coast and the rock Saba, chiefly 

 near the creeks and on the banks of the river. 

 They are large, beautiful, and formidable. The 

 Rattlesnake seems partial to a tract of ground 

 known by the name of Canal Number-three ; there 

 the effects of his poison will be long remembered. 



The Camoudi snake has been killed from thirty 

 to forty feet long; though not venomous, his size 

 renders him destructive to the passing animals. 

 The Spaniards in the Oroonoque positively affirm 

 that he grows to the length of seventy or eighty 

 feet, and that he will destroy the strongest and 

 largest bull. His name seems to confirm this; 

 there he is called ^'matatoro," which literally 



