At the farther end he found a loathsome monster standing in his way, seemingly quite indifferent to his approach; for it did not budge, but remained quite still, its ungainly form spread across the causeway, so that he had to step over it to pass by. Carew had never before seen one of the species; but he recognised this as a tropical land-crab--one of a hideous race of crustacea that swarm on this island, sharing the possession of Trinidad with the sea-birds and the snakes. In his present nervous state, Carew was startled by the sight of this repulsive-looking creature. It must have extended two feet across from claw to claw. Its colour was a bright saffron, and its grotesque features, which were turned towards the man, seemed to be fixed in a cynical grin. Its cruel-looking yellow pincers, hard as steel, could have bitten through an inch board, and between them was clutched--Carew sickened when he saw it--a fragment of the flesh of some animal. Reaching the rugged shore, he found it covered with these land-crabs. They crawled over the rocks and the dead trees, and the air was full of a multitudinous crackling noise, produced by the small particles of stone dislodged by their motion--a sound as of a distant bonfire, or as of an army of locusts settling on a field of maize. On the evening before, when the men had landed, they had seen none of these creatures; now there were thousands of them on the mountain-side. But it is well known that land-crabs at certain periods of the year migrate in immense hosts from one district to another. Even on the previous afternoon, when the coast was illumined by the full glory of the setting sun, Baptiste and the two Spaniards had been impressed by the desolate aspect before them. But now that a dark shadow was thrown over the chaotic masses of volcanic rock, the scenery was inexpressibly dreary and forbidding. Had there been no signs of life on the land, it would have appeared less terrible than with that ghastly vegetation of dead trees and snake-like creepers, and the teeming generation of silent crabs and foul sea-birds perpetually raising their hoarse cries. Carew looked round with the sense of vague terror that is experienced in a nightmare. He felt all the influence of this stern nature so hostile to the life of man. It seemed to him that at any moment some fearful cataclysm of the earth, or some unexampled calamity of any sort, might occur. It would not have appeared strange to him to behold a fire-breathing dragon or gigantic snake--such as are supposed to live in fable only--issue from that gloomy ravine. Nothing could have appeared too strange to happen on this mysterious shore.