10 
WANDERINGS IN 
FIRST 
JOURNEY 
The 
vulture. 
The 
vampire. 
Snakes. 
of the species of the genus is wont to feed. The pie, 
the gallinaceous, the columbine, and passerine tribes, 
resort to the fruit-bearing trees. 
You never fail to see the common vulture where 
there is carrion. In passing up the river there was 
an opportunity of seeing a pair of the king of the 
vultures ; they were sitting on the naked branch of 
a tree, with about a dozen of the common ones with 
them. A tiger had killed a goat the day before; he 
had been driven away in the act of sucking the blood, 
and not finding it safe or prudent to return, the goat 
remained in the same place where he had killed it; 
it had begun to putrefy, and the vultures had arrived 
that morning to claim the savoury morsel. 
At the close of day, the vampires leave the hollow 
trees, whither they had fled at the morning’s dawn, 
and scour along the river’s banks in cpiest of prey. 
On waking from sleep, the astonished traveller finds 
his hammock all stained with blood. It is the vam¬ 
pire that hath sucked him. Not man alone, but 
every unprotected animal, is exposed to his depre¬ 
dations ; and so gently does this nocturnal surgeon 
draw the blood, that instead of being roused, the 
patient is lulled into a still profounder sleep. There 
are two species of vampire in Demerara, and both 
suck living animals; one is rather larger than the 
common bat; the other measures above two feet 
from wing to wing extended. 
Snakes are frequently met with in the woods 
betwixt the sea-coast and the rock Saba, chiefly 
near the creeks and on the banks of the river. They 
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