■ WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 199 



Niobe for her poor children, before she was turned into 

 stone. Suppose yourself in hopeless sorrow, begin with a 

 high loud note, and pronounce, "ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha," 

 each note lower and lower, till the last is scarcely heard, 

 pausing a moment or two betwixt every note, and you will 

 have some idea of the moaning of the largest goatsucker in 

 Demerara. 



Four other species of the goatsucker articulate some 

 words so distinctly, that they have received their names 

 from the sentences they utter, and absolutely bewilder the 

 stranger on his arrival in these parts. The most common 

 one sits down close by your door, and flies and alights three 

 or four yards before you, as you walk along the road, cry- 

 ing, " Who-are-you, who-who-who-are-you ? " Another bids 

 you, " Work-away, work-work-work-away." A third cries, 

 mournfully, " Willy-come-go. Willy- Willy- Willy-come 

 go." And high up in the country, a fourth tells you to 

 " Whip-poor- Will. Whip-whip-whip-poor-Will." 



You will never persuade the negro to destroy these birds 

 or get the Indian to let fly his arrow at them. They are 

 birds of omen and reverential dread. Jumbo, the demon 

 of Africa, has them under his command ; and they equally 

 obey the Yabahou, or Demerara Indian devil. They are 

 the receptacles for departed souls, who come back again to 

 earth, unable to rest for crimes done in their days of nature ; 

 or they are expressly sent by Jumbo, or Yabahou, to haunt 

 cruel and hard-hearted masters, and retaliate injuries re- 

 ceived from them. If the largest goatsucker chance to 

 cry near the white man's door, sorrow and grief will soon 

 be inside ; and they expect to see the master waste away 

 with a slow consuming sickness. If it be heard close to 

 the negro's or Indian's hut, from that night misfortune sits 

 brooding over it; and they await the event in tenible 

 suspense. 



