\ 
AMONG THE CARIBS. 85 
nearer, and I could distinguish two torches, held aloft 
by unsteady hands, approaching through the forest. 
What did it mean? 
The noise increased, and when the lights flashed 
nearer I saw there were three persons: two holding 
the torches, which sent up broad flame and thick 
smoke, supporting between them another who ap- 
peared unable to walk unaided. They were shouting 
some bacchanalian song, and their unsteady move- 
ments convinced me that they were intoxicated. Ina 
few minutes they would be at my door, as they were 
already at the river, and then there might be trouble ; 
for, though quiet enough when sober, the Carib will 
sometimes quarrel when drunk. 
Acting upon the resolution of the instant, I barri- 
caded door and window, slipped a couple of cartridges 
into my gun, and retired to my hammock. By this 
time they were upon me, pounding heavily at my 
door, and shouting, in unintelligible French, threats, 
entreaties, imprecations. But I kept silence, which 
only exasperated them the more, and at last I heard 
one of them say, “I will see if he is there;” and then, 
later, when I thought they had gone, my attention 
was drawn, by a slight rustling, to a crack in the 
walls, and I saw sailing into the room one after an- 
other, tiny sparks of fire, glowing with a greenish 
phosphorescent light. They did not drop inert, these 
sparks, nor did they set fire to my thatch, for they 
were sparks of the animal kingdom, elaters, fire- 
flies, two of which will give out sufficient light to 
read by. 
Would any one but an Indian, a child of the forest, 
have thought of this original way of lighting an apart- 
ment? 
