what refembling a ftar upon it. This monfter has five
pair o f thick legs, with four joints in each; is entirely
black or dark brown, and covered over, legs and all,
with thick and long black hair, like forae caterpillars*
while each leg is armed with a crooked yellow nail, and
from the head project two long teeth with inverted pin^
cers, refembling the claw o f a crab, with which it feizes
its prey ; while its bite, i f not fatal by the venomous liquid
infufed into the wound, always occafions a fever.
It has eight eyes like moft fpiders, and feeds on infers
o f every fpecies; nay, it is 'even aflerted, that young
birds do not efcape it, out o f which this fpider: fucks the
blood: its web is frnall but very ftrong. Upon the
whole, it is fuch a hideous creature, that the very fight
o f it is fufficient to occalion a tremor o f abhorrence, even
in perfons moft accuftomed to ihfjpedt thé dëfca^itiês ó f
nature. Innumerable indeed are the pells and dangers
to which one- is hourly expoled in the woods o f this
tropical climate ; and though it is my prefent bhlinefs
only to make mention o f fuch as I met with in this
inarch, and which muft appear new to the reader, yet
a recapitulation o f the names only o f our numerous
plagues may not be improper to refrelh the memory Of
thofe who have a heart to fympathize with our fuffer-
ings. I have already mentioned the muffm’toes,. fnW*
pieras, patat and ferapat lice, • chigoes, cock - roaches,
common ants, jfre-ants, and fpi*
ders; belides the prickly heat, | ririg+worm, ‘ dry-griped;
putrid fevers,, boils, confaca, bloody-flux,thorns, briars,
alligators,
alligators, flnakes, tigers, &c. ; but I have not yet fpoken c | ap.
©f the bujh-worms, large ants, locufls, centipedes, fcor- u—,— l
pions,: bats, and flying-lice, the crajfy-crajfy, yaws, lethargy;
leprtify, and dropfy, with a thoiifand other grievances
that continually annoyed our unhappy troops ; — a
particular defcription of which I muft delay till a more
fuitable Opportunity occurs for introducing them into
this ! narrative; 1
. Such were the pells that we had to ftruggle with in
this baneful climate, whilft our poor men were dying in
multitudes, without proper afliftance, unpitied, and frequently
without a friend to, clofe their eyë-lids, neither
coffin nor Ihell to receive their bones, bu t thrown pro-
mifcuoully into one pit, like heaps o f loathfome carrion.
On the 19th,. we again, left our encampment, and after
-keeping a little S. marched\E. till ten o’clock, when we
were overtaken and joined by a party o f one hundred
'rangers, with their conduftor, Mr. Vinfack, to my great
fatisfadtion. At this period we muttered three hundred
men; and however little Colonel Fourgeoud affedted, at
other times, to value thefe black foldiers, he was now not
at all difpleafed with their company, upon our near approach
to an enemy with whom the rangers were well
acquainted, and knew how to engage much better than
the marines: while it will ever be my opinion, that one
of thefe free negroes is preferable to half a dozen white
men in the foreft of Guiana; it indeed feems their natural
element, whilft it is the bane of the Europeans-
Colonel i l l