82 
BLUEFIELDS. 
on the living things around me, while thus delight- 
fully immersed by the half-hour together ; and, as 
was indeed but fair, observations have been made on 
me. On one occasion I had been lying motionless 
for a long time, just beneath the surface, when a 
Y v\iwxQ {Cathartes aura) that had marked me from a 
distance, began to descend in circles, swooping over 
me, nearer and nearer at every turn, until at length 
the shadow of his gaunt form swept close between my 
face and the light, and the rushing of his wide-spread 
wings fanned my body as he passed. It was evi- 
dent that he had mistaken me for a drowned corpse ; 
and probably it was the motion of my open eyes, as I 
followed his course, that told him all was not quite 
right, and kept him sailing round in low circles 
instead of alighting. ^ 
One day, about the middle of June, as I had just 
jumped over the wall, and was walking down the 
steep bank through the high Guinea-grass, with my 
towel under my arm, my attention was arrested by 
observing several little objects leaping up from the 
pool against the cascade. Presently perceiving that 
they were fishes, I returned to the house for my 
insect water-net, and proceeded to the margin to 
endeavour to capture one. I was not at once suc- 
cessful ; my presence scared them : but soon one and 
another began to leap from the boiling pot beneath 
against the glassy wall above them. Most of them 
achieved only a foot or two ; but I perceived one very 
nearly lodge at the top, though the height of the fall, 
from surface to surface, was not much short of six 
feet, and the little performers were scarcely more 
