Nov. 7, 1908.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
rind and sealed it as complete as you please. 
Well, sir, he stayed the night with us in camp 
and at the first glimmer of the dawn he started 
for the coast, where he arrived all right and 
dispatched our letters as safely as the postmaster- 
general himself could do it. 
Wasn t that as curious a way as ever you 
heard of anyone getting a letter wrote, to say 
that a red Indian, from the wild hills, was able 
to do for us what the whole fitout of us, who 
hailed from the middle of civilization, couldn’t 
do for ourselves?” 
I admitted it was a rather novel experience, 
but thought the subsequent part of the story 
even more interesting. They learned, while 
smoking and chatting around the camp-fire, that 
the Indian had been educated in Montreal, where 
he had lived a number of years and where he 
had learned a little of both the French and Eng¬ 
lish languages. At sunset he sang in a cleat- 
tenor voice, several French hymns, and also that 
old English melody, “Nearer My God to Thee.” 
Ihe scene must, indeed, have been a most 
impressive one, the crowd of rough, brawny 
woodsmen lounging around the camp-fire, with 
their heads bared reverently, a rapt look on their 
bronzed faces, their glowing pipes lying neglected 
in their hands; the last rays of the dying sun 
glistening through the foliage, lighting up their 
rugged features, gilding the grand old tree 
trunks and transforming them with magic touch 
into the golden pillars of nature’s vast cathedral; 
the plaintive old melody echoing and re echoing 
through the forest arches, a solemn Sabbath still¬ 
ness reigning all around, save when the voices 
of nature—the diapason of the rippling waters, 
the soft sighing cadence of the breezes through 
the branches—blended in harmony with the voice 
of the singer and swelled the vesper hymn, while 
the very birds of the air ceased their songs to 
listen and the strain floated through the fresh 
glades out over the shining waters, and even the 
distant hilltops caught up the refrain and echoed 
back softly, “Nearer, nearer to Thee.” 
Camping in South America 
By FRANCIS C. NICHOLAS, Ph.D. 
IX.—Vampire Bats 
O NCE, just at daybreak in the lowlands, I 
had seen a strange object come flying 
across the sky, not darting about like 
a bat, nor yet looking like a bird. It flew with 
great rapidity, keeping its direction with pre¬ 
cision, and bearing away toward the mountains. 
As it passed over us, it turned its head and 
looked down. The piercing strength of its 
glance seemed almost to be felt—an instant it 
glittered on us. Then the bat passed over our 
heads, and was gone. 
“Lopez, what was that?” I asked. 
“Just one of those nasty vampires. Filthy 
beasts,” he replied. 
“Don’t let them get at you in the night. No 
matter, though; they live in the mountains, and 
besides they can’t get through the mosquito 
tents.” 
This had been some time before our trip to 
the upper mountains. No doubt the men had 
forgotten all about it, but I had not, and late 
one afternoon said to Lopez, “Now that we are 
up in the mountains, I want to see some vam¬ 
pires.” 
“Well, you won’t want to see them twice,” he 
replied. 
“Why, will they attack?” I asked. 
“No; but they are foul creatures and the 
stench of rotten blood will give you enough 
of it.” 
“M ell, I want some for the museum in New 
York. Come, let’s try and see if we can get a 
few.” 
W hatever I wanted, the men were willing to 
do for me, if they could. But vampire bats! 
They thought I was a queer lot, and that I 
was growing more peculiar every day. 
How I would kill the vampires seemed a 
mystery, because they would fly away with great 
rapidity; but I thought I could kill them while 
in flight, and the people said they would like to 
see me do it. So quite a company were ready 
to witness the sport. 
We had gotten pretty well up among the 
mountains, and were at a place called Pueblo 
Viejo, a little settlement at the edge of the 
Aurohuaco Indian country. Evening was ap¬ 
proaching and the vampire bats could soon be 
expected flying down from some of the rocky 
gorges; not many of them because they are 
never very abundant, but some can usually be 
seen. Quite a party went to hunt vampires 
with me. Our way was through a narrow valley 
among enormous green mountains, a valley 
which seemed to form a sort of passageway as 
it extended upward, gradually becoming more 
rugged till all bare rocks were exposed. About 
us were great forest trees flanked by rocky 
precipices, the rocks growing bolder and the 
trees gradually becoming smaller till, the timber 
line passed, a wilderness of rocks was seen 
looking as if it might come tumbling down the 
great gorge-like valley in which we were 
traveling, and above all this mass of accumula¬ 
tion of rocks v/ere the upper regions of the 
mountains, the paramo, and then the regions 
of perpetual snow, where the white ridges were 
seen glistening and radiant in the light of the 
tropical sunset. 
A place more beautiful can perhaps not be 
found in all America. Ihe air coming up from 
the sea, is so soft and pleasant, so caressingly 
warm and soothing that one delights simply to 
breathe. The upper mountains are so famed 
for their salubrity that people make long 
journeys to live there for a time; and it is said 
that the inhabitants expect their lives to con¬ 
tinue for at least one hundred years. 
729 
While I was among these mountains I met an 
old lady of one hundred and fifteen years, still 
able to be about, enjoying life, ready to do her 
part of the household labor and taking great 
pride in maintaining her activities in the family. 
This is a c6untry worth the journey of miles 
which one must make in order to visit it, though 
in the upper mountains there is game only. 
Among the foothills and lower jungles the birds 
and animals are living, but there is such an 
abundance, and such great variety is found, that 
it seems scarcely possible the woods could sup¬ 
port so many living creatures. The only excuse 
for game in the upper mountains was to try 
one’s hand at shooting vampires, and the only 
reason for shooting vampires was to secure a 
few specimens of this rather rare animal. 
After a time we came to an open space in 
the narrow valley, where at one side were over¬ 
hanging rocks, and further up a frowning 
precipice, and beyond this the bleak rocks and 
rugged peaks of the paramo. It was a place 
entrancingly beautiful and we, stirred with the 
inspiration of the scene, stood gazing at our 
surroundings. Then a shadow passed over our 
heads and was gone. 
“Well, why didn’t you shoot it?” one of the 
mountaineers asked. 
“Shoot what?” I replied. 
“The vampire. Didn’t you say you could kill 
them flying?” 
I had to admit that I thought I could kill 
bats on the wing, if I wanted to; but shooting 
at a streak of shadow and expecting to kill it 
was another thing. 
“Well, there comes another. Now kill that 
one.” 
Sure enough, down the gorge a big bat was 
coming in swift, steady flight; not the great 
vampire—I was disappointed in this—but a 
large bat which I was anxious to secure. As 
it came, I was ready, yet had misunderstood the 
swiftness of its flight, and before I could raise 
the old shotgun, which had been borrowed foi 
the occasion, it had, by a sudden energy of 
flight, swerved to one side, as it caught sight of 
us, and was gone. 
“Oh, yes, you can shoot vampires flying!” our 
mountain guide said. “Now see that one. 
There it comes; look!” 
I got the gun up this time and fired, but the 
thing had disappeared. The men laughed, and 
as the smoke cleared away some streaks of 
shadow passed over our heads, and that w-as 
the end of the vampires. 
“Never mind,” our guide said, “the Indian 
boys will get you some vampires in the morn¬ 
ing. Now we must go home, the sun is setting.” 
Over the rocks, and on down to the glades 
we went, our guide telling me how the vam¬ 
pires were so numerous in some of the moun¬ 
tain valleys that cattle could not be maintained, 
they were litterally blood-sucked to death. 
Among these mountains are beautiful open 
grassy valleys, rich in splendid pasturage but 
tenantless, and must so remain because of the 
relentless vampires. 
The great vampire is not abundant in these 
mountains, but a smaller variety is bad enough, 
and no one would think of sleeping in the open. 
The bats would be. certain to attack him. 
We reached home and, now a chill filling the 
air, were glad to find shelter in the well pro¬ 
tected interior. 
