Wanderings in South America | Page 4

baboon, is heard oftener than it
is seen, while the common brown monkey, the bisa, and sacawinki rove
from tree to tree, and amuse the stranger as he journeys on.
A species of the polecat, and another of the fox, are destructive to the
Indian's poultry, while the opossum, the guana and salempenta afford
him a delicious morsel.
The small ant-bear, and the large one, remarkable for his long, broad,
bushy tail, are sometimes seen on the tops of the wood-ants' nests; the
armadillos bore in the sand-hills, like rabbits in a warren; and the
porcupine is now and then discovered in the trees over your head.
This, too, is the native country of the sloth. His looks, his gestures and
his cries all conspire to entreat you to take pity on him. These are the
only weapons of defence which Nature hath given him. While other
animals assemble in herds, or in pairs range through these boundless
wilds, the sloth is solitary and almost stationary; he cannot escape from
you. It is said his piteous moans make the tiger relent and turn out of
the way. Do not then level your gun at him or pierce him with a
poisoned arrow--he has never hurt one living creature. A few leaves,
and those of the commonest and coarsest kind, are all he asks for his
support. On comparing him with other animals you would say that you
could perceive deficiency, deformity and superabundance in his
composition. He has no cutting-teeth, and though four stomachs, he
still wants the long intestines of ruminating animals. He has only one
inferior aperture, as in birds. He has no soles to his feet nor has he the
power of moving his toes separately. His hair is flat, and puts you in
mind of grass withered by the wintry blast. His legs are too short; they
appear deformed by the manner in which they are joined to the body,
and when he is on the ground, they seem as if only calculated to be of
use in climbing trees. He has forty-six ribs, while the elephant has only
forty, and his claws are disproportionably long. Were you to mark
down, upon a graduated scale, the different claims to superiority

amongst the four-footed animals, this poor ill-formed creature's claim
would be the last upon the lowest degree.
Demerara yields to no country in the world in her wonderful and
beautiful productions of the feathered race. Here the finest precious
stones are far surpassed by the vivid tints which adorn the birds. The
naturalist may exclaim that Nature has not known where to stop in
forming new species and painting her requisite shades. Almost every
one of those singular and elegant birds described by Buffon as
belonging to Cayenne are to be met with in Demerara, but it is only by
an indefatigable naturalist that they are to be found.
The scarlet curlew breeds in innumerable quantities in the muddy
islands on the coasts of Pomauron; the egrets and crabiers in the same
place. They resort to the mud-flats at ebbing water, while thousands of
sandpipers and plovers, with here and there a spoonbill and flamingo,
are seen amongst them. The pelicans go farther out to sea, but return at
sundown to the courada-trees. The humming-birds are chiefly to be
found near the flowers at which each 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
quest of prey. On waking from sleep the astonished traveller finds his
hammock all stained with blood. It is the vampire that hath sucked him.
Not man alone, but every unprotected animal, is exposed to his
depredations; 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