190 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA 



ing prayers. ''What is the matter, Sir," said 

 I, softly; "is any thing amiss?" ''What's the 

 matter?" answered he, surlily; "why, the vam- 

 pires 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 an 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 he was of opinion that I had better have 

 spared this piece of ill-timed levity. 



It was not the last punishment of this good gen- 

 tleman in the river Paumaron. The next night 

 he was doomed to undergo a kind of ordeal un- 

 known in Europe. There is a species of large red 

 ant in Guiana, sometimes called Eanger, some- 

 times Coushie. These ants march in millions 

 through the country, in compact order, like a regi- 

 ment of soldiers ; they eat up every insect in their 

 march; and if a house obstruct their route, they 

 do not turn out of the way, but go quite through 

 it. Though they sting cruelly when molested, the 

 planter is not sorry to see them in his house; for 

 it is but a passing visit, and they destroy every 



