THE SWAMPS OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 117 



liad commeuced again ; but as I was not be hissed off, I seached my pockets 

 and found one of my rifle balls, which I put into my guri, and with which I 

 gave him the finishing touch. I burst a hole in his head sufficient, to admit 

 my hand, I then mounted on his head and gave a hurra for myself; I then 

 shouldered my axe and commenced cutting off his head, and as I have 

 copied an extract from an old letter, which I sent home for the amusement 

 of some of my young relations, describing this operation, you will probably 

 permit me to read it. 



" Of all the scenes this must have been the most classic. I was standing 

 up to the knees in water and broken cane, making the fragments of bones, 

 blood, and water fly in every direction, — a liberal proportion of which I dealt 

 about myself, and it kept dripping all the time from the rugged points of 

 my lojtg beard, for you must understand that you would require to look twice 

 before you would recognize your ole imcle, for it is a long time now since 

 he lost sight not only of his chin but his mouth too." 



The day was fearfully warm, and I was very thirsty, and having no oppor- 

 tunity of drinking from a crystal spring, I took a good draught from the 

 neighboui-hood of my knees, which was rather highly coloured (of course from 

 the operation) and resembled golden sherry more than water from the foun- 

 tain. I kept hewing till I cleared a way down through the bones, and the 

 next difficulty was to get the sldn of the throat cut through, in order to 

 separate the head from the body; to turn round the head was very far beyond 

 my strength, besides the uncertain footing I had to contend with ; to accom- 

 plish this, I sunk my arm up to the shoulder and kept sawing and cutting 

 with my knife till he looked more like a log and less like an Alligator. After 

 some hard work, I got his head into my peroque, and just as I was putting 

 off, a Turkey Buzzard made his appearance, and after describing a few 

 circles, he lit upon the admiral, but before he could tap him, I reckon he 

 would require to go home and sharpen his bill. 



I got safely across the lake and through the creek, and deposited my 

 specimen at head quarters ; the surprise of some of the men was great, for 

 although they had all seen hundreds of Alligators, they acknowledged that 

 one of his size was not to be seen eveiy day. I opened his mouth and 

 gagged him to shew oft' his teeth, which added considerably to his expres- 

 sion, and in this fix I left him to pass the night with a number of Cranes, 

 Egrets, Ducks, Coots, and Racoons, which were laying in confusion all round. 

 The following day, I split up his jaws with my axe for the pui-pose of boiling 

 them, in order to extract the teeth , and during this process, I was par- 

 ticularly struck with the manner in which these animals appear to shed their 

 teeth ; it may be common Avith other members of this family, but the pecu- 

 liarity was veiy new to me ; in place of shedding the whole tooth, they only 

 shed a part, — the upper crust, if I may so term it, slips off in the form of a 



