The blood-sucker
This night I took possession of my lodging in good time, and, as I thought, carefully fenced myself with an impregnable barrier; and, as I thought so, it was the same as if it had been a high stone-wall, for it removed my perturbation, and occasioned me to sleep soundly. When I awoke the following morning, I was surprised to find my stocking matted with coagulated blood; I hastened to a rill of water, where I had the day before previously allayed my thirst, to draw it off and cleanse the foot. To my utter astonishment and dismay, I discovered that my shoe was in every part stained with blood, and that the toes and the sole of the right foot were stiff with coagulum.
Divesting myself of the covering of my foot, I observed a small wound on the instep, not unlike the mark made by a leech. Imagining that I had been bitten by some formidable insect, such as I had seen in the course of our journey, when I had washed myself and recovered my fright, I hastened back to scrape out the interior of my chamber with a stick. In performing this work I disturbed myriads of small insects with which I had rested, but nothing that could account for the bite on my foot. Pleased, however, at having discovered the necessity there was for cleanliness in my apartment. I was resolved to give it a thorough scouring; and for this purpose thrust the stick up a hollow arm of the tree above my head, when out flew an extraordinary large bat. It was some satisfaction to become acquainted with those who are likely to become the sharers of your lodging, and I had no doubt the bat was the animal that flew against my face when endeavouring to set out the previous evening on his usual nocturnal rambles.
Still I remained in a state of ignorance as to the cause of the wound in my foot. It requires much study and considerable experience, even to ascertain the causes of only a few effects in the phenomena of nature's workshop. Unwilling to leave the uninformed reader in doubt, not only in this particular instance, but in numerous others that will be met with in the course of this narrative, I shall anticipate, as it were, my own subsequent experience, and explain, when I can, the causes of certain effects that occurred to me while living alone in the forest. It was a species of bat, named by naturalists the vampire, that I had ejected, and he it was who had bled me so freely in the foot.
It is remarkable that this bloodsucker, when once he has fastened on an animal, is allowed to satiate his appetite unmolested, as its victims all remain quiet and unresisting during the time he makes his meal. It is said that vampires flap their wings and produce a cooling sensation that lulls their prey to sleep while they suck their fill.
In the instance of myself, I had not awoke the whole night, and was perfectly unconscious of the attack, until morning; but, as I have already said, I was in nature's great school, and soon learnt that, as in the moral world, so it is in the woods, there is more to dread from insidious attacks, than from open and declared enemies.
When I had satisfied my appetite, on leaving my resting-place, with nuts and fruit, I sat down by the rill of water, to consider more determinately than I had hitherto done, what were my prospects, and what course of conduct I should pursue for my own protection.
The battle of the snakes
While thus engaged in thought, my attention was attracted to a snake, only a few yards' distance from where I sat; it was near a patch of brushwood, and was apparently trembling with fear. Almost as soon as I had noticed its state of alarm, another snake, with astonishing celerity, sprung upon it, and seized it by the neck, then encircled itself about six folds round the body of its victim, like the worm of a screw. The assailant then, leaning its head over the other, looked its gasping foe in the face, to ascertain the effect of the coils round the body; and seeing that its prey was still alive, it multiplied the coils three or four times, and evidently tightened the screw, watching all the time to see the effect of the extra coils. The attacking party was an animal designated the black snake, and the victim was a rattlesnake, about three and a half feet long, its enemy being about the same length. The former, however, had perfect command over the latter; but I was surprised at the length of time the executioner took to satisfy himself that his work of death was performed. The black snake remained three-quarters of an hour coiled round the other, and then very slowly and cautiously slackened one coil at a time, narrowly watching if any signs of life yet remained, ready to resume the screw again, if necessary, to complete the destruction of the victim.
Driving the live snake away, I obtained possession of the dead one: it was four years old, which I scarce need mention was known by the number of rattles in its tail, which make a rattling noise when these reptiles are in motion.