44 TRAVELS ON THE AMAZON. \July, 
During our makeshift conversation, carried on Avith our 
very slender Portuguese vocabulary, Senhor C. would 
frequently ask us what such and such a word was in 
“Americano” (for so the English language is here called), 
and appeared highly amused at the absurd and incom- 
prehensible terms used by us in ordinary conversation. 
Among other things we told him that we called “ rapaz” 
in Americano “ boy,” which word in Portuguese 
means an ox. This was to him a complete climax of ab- 
surdity, and tickled him into roars of laughter, and he 
made us repeat it to him several times, that he might 
not forget so good a joke ; even when we were pulling 
away into the middle of the stream, and waving our 
“ adeos,” his last words were, as loud as he could bawl, 
“ O que se chama rapaz ?” (What do you call rapaz ?) 
A day or two before we left the mills we had an op- 
portunity of seeing the effects of the vampire’s operations 
on a young horse Mr. Leavens had just purchased. The 
first morning after its arrival the poor animal presented 
a most pitiable appearance, large streams of clotted blood 
running down from several wounds on its back and 
sides. The appearance was however, I daresay, worse 
than the reality, as the bats have the skill to bleed with- 
out giving pain, and it is quite possible the horse, like 
a patient under the influence of chloroform, may have 
known nothing of the matter. The danger is in the 
attacks being repeated every night, till the loss of blood 
becomes serious. To prevent this, red peppers are usually 
rubbed on the parts wounded, and on all likely places ; 
and this will partly check the sanguinivorous appetite of 
the bats, but not entirely, as in spite of this application 
