WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 95 



killed it ; it had begun to putrefy, and the vultures had 

 arrived that morning to claim the savoury morsel. 



At the close of day, the Vampires leave the hollow trees, 

 whither they had fled at the morning's dawn, and scour 

 along the river's banks in quest of prey. On waking 

 from sleep, the astonished traveller finds his hammock 

 all stained with blood. It is the vampire tliat hath 

 sucked him. ISTot 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 tlie 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 for- 

 midable. 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 de- 

 structive 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 means " bull- 

 killer." Thus he may be ranked amongst the deadly 

 snakes ; for it comes nearly to the same thing in the end, 

 whether the victim dies by poison from the fangs, which 

 corrupts his blood and makes it stink horribly, or whether 

 his body be crushed to mummy, and swallowed by this 

 hideous beast. 



