two
more great stones; clarified, by some cunning island trick, with a
few drops of cold water; and then served up, bearing, in fragrance
and taste, the same relation to average English coffee as fresh
things usually do to stale ones, or live to dead. After which
'manana,' and a little quinine for fear of fever, we lounged about
waiting for breakfast, and for the arrival of the horses from the
village.

Then we inspected a Coolie's great toe, which had been severely
bitten by a vampire in the night. And here let me say, that the
popular disbelief of vampire stories is only owing to English
ignorance, and disinclination to believe any of the many quaint
things which John Bull has not seen, because he does not care to see
them. If he comes to those parts, he must be careful not to leave
his feet or hands out of bed without mosquito curtains; if he has
good horses, he ought not to leave them exposed at night without
wire-gauze round the stable-shed--a plan which, to my surprise, I
never saw used in the West Indies. Otherwise, he will be but too
likely to find in the morning a triangular bit cut out of his own
flesh, or even worse, out of his horse's withers or throat, where
twisting and lashing cannot shake the tormentor off; and must be
content to have himself lamed, or his horses weakened to staggering
and thrown out of collar-work for a week, as I have seen happen more
than once or twice. The only method of keeping off the vampire yet
employed in stables is light; and a lamp is usually kept burning
there. But the Negro--not the most careful of men--is apt not to
fill and trim it; and if it goes out in the small hours, the horses
are pretty sure to be sucked, if there is a forest near. So
numerous and troublesome, indeed, are the vampires, that there are
pastures in Trinidad in which, at least till the adjoining woods
were cleared, the cattle would not fatten, or even thrive; being
found, morning after morning, weak and sick from the bleedings which
they had endured at night.

After looking at the Coolie's toe, of which he made light, though
the bleeding from the triangular hole would not stop, any more than
that from the bite of a horse-leech, we feasted our ears on the
notes of delicate songsters, and our eyes on the colours and shapes
of the forest, which, rising on the opposite side of the streams
right and left, could be seen here more thoroughly than at any spot
I yet