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 are
large, beautiful and formidable. The rattlesnake seems partial to a tract
of ground known by the name of Canal Number-three: there the effects of his
poison will be long remembered.

The camoudi snake has been killed from thirty to forty feet long; though
not venomous, his size renders him destructive to the passing animals. The
Spaniards in the Oroonoque positively affirm that he grows to the length of
seventy or eighty feet and that he will destroy the strongest and largest
bull. His name seems to confirm this: there he is called "matatoro," which
literally means "bull-killer." Thus he may be ranked amongst the deadly
snakes, for it comes nearly to the same thing in the end whether the victim
dies by poison from the fangs, which corrupts his blood and makes it stink
horribly, or whether his body be crushed to mummy, and swallowed by this
hideous beast.

The whipsnake of a beautiful changing green, and the coral, with alternate
broad traverse bars of black and red, glide from bush to bush, and may be
handled with safety; they are harmless little creatures.

The labarri snake is speckled, of a dirty brown colour, and can scarcely be
distinguished from the ground or stump on which he is coiled up; he grows
to the length of about eight feet and his bite often proves fatal in a few
minutes.