Other Times, other Manners. 257 



make visible the pitchy blackness of its folds. I collefled 

 my burden, and placing it in a cleft of the Mora, kindled 

 a fire to ensure me against the attacks of the Wild Beasts 

 which were now prowling in all dire6lions. I drew my 

 cloak closely round me, but had scarce composed my 

 limbs when I was roused by a confused buzzing noise, 

 and starting up, beheld a creature descending with 

 extended wing and flying round the fire, dart suddenly 

 on the dead Arawatoyano ; I grasped my sword, and 

 aiming a deadly blow, it fell severed in two to the earth. 

 So bright were its wings that I could scarcely persuade 

 myself I had not killed an Angela and so immense its 

 size that in making my escape, (which I thought it prudent 

 to do immediately), I could carry away only the upper 

 half. I arrived, he continued, on the tenth day after this 

 adventure, in Georgetown, and on reference to my books, 

 am inclined to class it among the Bug species." 



He here ceased — I immediately rose, thanked him for 

 his information, and being something of a Naturalist my- 

 self, hurried to the Guiana Chronicle Office, where I now 

 recognised this extraordinary animal to be nothing but a 

 Hum Bug! — Your obedient servant, JEREMY CoCKLOFT. 



"John Suckling," came out in the next paper with 

 another " skit" in which he described an encounter with 

 the " men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders." 

 Everybody appears to have taken the affair as a hoax, and 

 no doubt the genial traveller enjoyed the whole thing 

 immensely. 



KK2 



