The Uattlesnake under the Hammock. 239 
earned wages which, as we only possessed a few articles of trade, was 
insignificant enough. 
544. During this anxious period Tiedge's naive and sprightly 
descriptions of his lonesome life and of particular scenes that enlivened 
it afforded us infinite amusement, and often caused most immoderate 
laughter. This was especially the case with some of the adventures that 
he had to repeat more than once. Eeference was made in one to his first 
meeting with several Brazilians who had put in an appearance soon after 
our departure from Pirara, and of whom he believed nothing less than 
that they had been sent to make a slave of him: then in another, the 
visit of some jaguars after the carcass of one of Mr. Youd's horses that 
had died quite close to the village and with which a number of other 
carnivorous animals had associated themselves: but the funniest of all 
was the story he told of a i-attle-snake when to be sure he must have 
found himself iu a tight coi-ner. As he was just about to step out of 
his hammock one morning he noticed beneath it a large rattle-snake 
which, already rolled in a spiral, raised its head and spat out its tongue 
with every movement on his own part. The anxious prisoner was each" 
minute afraid lest the dangerous creature would make its deadly spring. 
If he tried to escape by jumping out on one side, there lay the head of 
the animal in wait: if he attempted it on the other, its small piercing 
eyes were glaring at him. Every more than ordinary movement of the 
hammock only ii'ritated the reptile, which raised its head and neck so 
much the higher. It was in this terrible situation, without weapons, 
and momentarily expecting the snake to spring, that poor Tiedge, 
frightened and bathed in sweat, had to spend two hours, when it first 
pleased the abominable creature to creep further away. Since this 
occurrence he had tied his hammock twice as high. Still more funny 
was his descriptiou of the fight he fought with the silent Tempter, who 
owing to the lonesomeness of the l*ife was continually goading him on to 
broach the small supply of sini'ituous liquor that had been left behind: 
he had already several times seized one of the flasks, but just in the 
nick of time had been restrained by the conviction that if Satan once 
got his fingei^tips, he would soon have possessed his whole body. With 
the object therefore of avoiding any further temptation, he had put the 
bottles in the darkest corner of the building. 
545. On the day of our return, close to our house, I came into 
possession of a peculiar snake which, judging from its projecting upper 
jaw appeared to belong to the genus Heterodon, and on closer examin- 
ation shewed itself to be really a new species of this interesting genus, 
and received the name of TTetcrodon guianeusis Trosch. 
546. Our arrival at the village was shortly afterwards followed by 
that of several of the former residents, and in general a day seldom 
passed but company came from the nearer or more distant settlements, 
occupied the quarters still remaining empty, and then went away again 
to make room for others. Included among such temporary occupants 
were certain Indians and the headman from Mari Village on the 
Eupununi, who brought us the sad news that the terrible scourge of 
small-pox had broken out at his settlement and that a large proportion 
of his men had already fallen yictinis to It- According to the statement 
