During our makeshift conversation, carried on with our very slender Portuguese vocabulary, Senhor C. would frequently ask us what such and such a word was in " Americano " (for so the English language is here called), and appeared highly amused at the absurd and incomprehensible terms used by us in ordinary conversation. Among other things we told him that we called "rapaz" in Americano " boy," which word (boi) in Portuguese means an ox. This was to him a complete climax of absurdity, and tickled him into roars of laughter, and he made us repeat it to him several times, that he might not forget so good a joke; even when we were pulling away into the middle of the stream, and waving our "adeos," his last words were, as loud as he could bawl, "O que se chama rapaz?" (What do you call rapas?)
A day or two before we left the mills we had an opportunity of seeing the effects of the vampire's[1] operations on a young horse Mr. Leavens had just purchased. The first morning after its arrival the poor animal presented a most pitiable appearance, large streams of clotted blood running down from several wounds on its back and sides. The appearance was, however, I daresay, worse than the reality, as the bats have the skill to bleed without giving pain, and it is quite possible the horse, like a patient under the influence of chloroform, may have known nothing of the matter. The danger is in the attacks being repeated every night till the loss of blood becomes serious. To prevent this, red peppers are usually rubbed on the parts wounded, and on all likely places; and this will partly check the sanguinivorous appetite of the bats. but not entirely, as in spite of this application the poor animal was again bitten the next night in fresh places.
Mr. Leavens is a native of Canada, and has been much engaged in the timber-trade of that country, and we had many conversations on the possibility of obtaining a good supply of timber from the Amazons. It seems somewhat extraordinary that the greater part of our timber should be brought from countries where the navigation is stopped nearly half the year by ice, and where the rivers are at all times obstructed by rapids and subject to storms, which render the bringing down the rafts a business of great danger; where, too, there is little
- ↑ This is a blood-sucking bat (Phyllostoma sp.), misnamed "vampyre," while the bats of the genus Vampyrus are fruit-caters.
