THIRD JOURNEY. 



189 



The caymen were now upon the stir, and at in- 

 tervals their noise could be distinguished amid that of 

 Noise of the j^o^^^> owls, the goatsuckers, and 

 Caymen. frogs. It was a singular and awful sound. 

 It was like a suppressed sigh, bursting forth all of a 

 sudden, and so loud that you might hear it above a 

 mile off. First one emitted this horrible noise, and 

 then another answered ; and on looking at the counte- 

 nances of the people round me, I could plainly see that 

 they expected to have a cayman that night. 



We were at supper, when the Indian, who seemed to 

 have had one eye on the turtle-pot and the other on 

 the bait in the river, said he saw the cayman coming. 



Upon looking towards the place, there appeared 

 something on the water like a black log of wood. It 

 was so unlike anything alive, that I doubted if it were 

 a cayman ; but the Indian smiled, and said, he was 

 sure it was one, for he remembered seeing a cayman, 

 some years ago, when he was in the Essequibo. 



At last it gradually approached the bait, and the 

 board began to move. The moon shone so bright, that 

 we could distinctly see him open his huge jaws, and 

 take in the bait. We pulled the rope. He imme- 

 diately let drop the bait ; and then we saw his black 

 head retreating from the board, to the distance of a 

 few yards ; and there it remained quite motionless. 



He did not seem inclined to advance again ; and so 

 we finished our supper. In about an hour's time he 

 again put himself in motion, and took hold of the bait. 

 But, probably suspecting that he had to deal with 

 knaves and cheats, he held it in his mouth, but did not 

 swallow it. We pulled the rope again, but with no 

 better success than the first time. 



