Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/153

 Rh noises all through the night, which interfered a little with my sleep. Next morning, at breakfast (which I took on a broad rock which served us for a table), I asked the captain the cause of the noise. He informed me that we had been in great danger, inasmuch as this island was the Ile aux Sonnettes, so called from the number of rattlesnakes on it; that he had not known of this, and had been very much alarmed when he heard it, but had not dared to venture going farther in the night on account of the current. He had, therefore, nothing to do but to build large fires and make a great deal of noise in order to frighten the snakes away. But he had not been able to close his eyes the whole night from anxiety on our account. I was much alarmed at this story, and remarked to him that our danger had been greatly increased by lying on the boughs in which the snakes like to hide. He agreed with me, and said that if he had known sooner where we were, he would have had all the boughs taken away, or have begged us rather to stay in the bark. He had first learned it, however, from one of the people in our other boat, which had followed us later. In the morning we found skins and slime of these nasty beasts all about, and hurried through our breakfast as quickly as possible.”