hen we got to the boat the Negro in
charge of her saw us laughing, and laughed too for company, without
waiting to hear the joke; and as two of them took the canoe home, we
could hear them laughing still in the distance, till the lonely
loathsome place rang again. I plead guilty to having given the men,
as payment, not only for their work but for their jollity, just
twice what they asked, which, after all, was very little.

But what are Calling Crabs? I must ask the reader to conceive a
moderate-sized crab, the front of whose carapace is very broad and
almost straight, with a channel along it, in which lie, right and
left, his two eyes, each on a footstalk half as long as the breadth
of his body; so that the crab, when at rest, carries his eyes as
epaulettes, and peeps out at the joint of each shoulder. But when
business is to be done, the eye-stalks jump bolt upright side by
side, like a pair of little lighthouses, and survey the field of
battle in a fashion utterly ludicrous. Moreover, as if he were not
ridiculous enough even thus, he is (as Mr. Wood well puts it) like a
small man gifted with one arm of Hercules, and another of Tom Thumb.
One of his claw arms, generally the left, has dwindled to a mere
nothing, and is not seen; while along the whole front of his shell
lies folded one mighty right arm, on which he trusts; and with that
arm, when danger appears, he beckons the enemy to come on, with such
wild defiance, that he has gained therefrom the name of Gelasimus
Vocans ('The Calling Laughable'); and it were well if all scientific
names were as well fitted. He is, as might be guessed, a shrewd
fighter, and uses the true old 'Bristol guard' in boxing, holding
his long arm across his body, and fencing and biting therewith
swiftly and sharply enough. Moreover, he is a respectable animal,
and has a wife, and takes care of her; and to see him in his glory,
it is said, he should be watched sitting in the mouth of his
'burrow, his spouse packed safe behind him inside, while he beckons
and brandishes, proclaiming to all passers-by the treasure which he
protects, while he defies them to touch it.

Such is the 'Calling Crab,' of whom I must say, that if he was not
made on purpose to be laughed at, then I should be induced to
suspect that nothing was made for any purpose whatsoever.

After which sight, and weary of waiting, not without some fear that-
-as the Negroes would have put