350 



ASSASSINS. 



against his door, between the hours of one and 

 four in the morning. I called the manager the 

 following evening, and both of us being armed, 

 we took our station near to the gate which leads 

 into the field, one being on each side, behind the 

 high bank. We could hear the footsteps of any 

 person long before he could approach us, as the 

 splashing in the rivulet which runs beyond the 

 gate, would give us timely notice. The mus- 

 quitos gave us much employment ; however we 

 remained at our post until half an hour before 

 day-break, without seeing any thing ; but the 

 practice was discontinued. Two men had ar- 

 rived early in the night to offer themselves as 

 labourers ; they were awake when we returned, 

 had made a good fire upon the ground in the 

 mill, (a spacious roof supported upon brick pil- 

 lars,) and were sitting round it upon their 

 heels ; we joined them, and here I heard their 

 stories of their own prowess, of charms and 

 miracles, and other conversation of the same 

 nature, each of them telling something strange 

 which he had seen or heard. * 



* A free negro, with whom I had t>£en acquainted whilst i 

 resided at this place, and who came to see me when I removed 

 to Itamaraca, told me, with much horror pictured in his 

 countenance, of the fate of a man who had worked for me. 

 He said that this person occasionally became a lotos homcm, 

 a wolf man. I asked him to explain, when he said that tie 

 man was at times transformed into an animal of the size of a 

 calf, with the figure of a dog ; that he left his home at mid- 



