298 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA 



was obliged to beg an old black woman to wash 

 it. As she was taking it down to the river side, 

 she spread it out before me, and shook her head. 

 I remarked, that I supposed her own toe was too 

 old and tough to invite the Vampire-doctor to 

 get his supper out of it; and she answered, with 

 a grin, that doctors generally preferred young 

 people. 



Nobody has yet been able to inform me how it 

 is that the vampire manages to draw such a large 

 quantity of blood, generally from the toe, and 

 the patient, all the time, remain in a profound 

 sleep. I have never heard of an instance of a 

 man waking under the operation. On the con- 

 trary, he continues in a sound sleep, and at the 

 time of rising, his eyes first inform him that there 

 has been a thirsty thief on his toe. 



The teeth of the vampire are very sharp, and 

 not unlike those of the rat. If it be that he in- 

 flicts the wounds with his teeth, (and he seems to 

 have no other instruments), one would suppose 

 that the acuteness of the pain would cause the 

 person who is sucked, to awake. We are in dark- 

 ness in this matter; and I know of no means by 

 which one might be enabled to throw light upon 

 it. It is to be hoped that some future wanderer 

 through the wilds of Guiana, will be more fortu- 

 nate than I have been, and catch this nocturnal 

 depredator in the fact. I have once before men- 

 tioned that I killed a vampire which measured 

 thirty- two inches from wing to wing extended; 

 but others, which I have since examined, have 

 generally been from twenty to twenty-six inches 

 in dimension. 



