ALLIGATOR HUNTLNG 95 



in the dim and distant past. On the Apure and the Arauca 

 the killing of alligators for their skins is sometimes 

 combined with the collecting of the feathers of the white 

 egret. The best time to kill them is at night. The 

 hunters visit the swamps and sandbanks, working their 

 way noiselessly through the channels or over the open 

 stretches of shallow water. A lantern with a good 

 reflector is placed at the bow of the punt used on these 

 occasions. The hunters succeed in this manner in getting 

 quite close to the alligators, when they can be shot in a 

 vital spot and secured with a noose or ga£f. It is not 

 unusual by these means to procure between sixty and 

 seventy of these reptiles in a single night. When I 

 visited the Orinoco for the first time in 1897, I met 

 two adventurous Norwegians (they were brothers, named 

 Christiansen) who were then engaged in obtaining 

 alligator-skins by the method I have just described. They 

 told me they had followed this pursuit in Mexico before 

 they decided on trying their fortunes in the land of 

 Bolivar, as Venezuelans sometimes call their country, 

 which happens at the present to be no man's land.^ 

 From the Christiansens' description of the alligator-skin 

 industry I have come to the conclusion that it is not 

 by any means as pleasant or lucrative an occupation as 

 being a London stockbroker or a speculator in pork at 

 the Produce Exchange. The wounding and subsequent 

 securing by an uncertain process of an enraged reptile 

 with teeth like a circular saw and a tail like a sledge- 

 hammer, is an undertaking calculated to appal even 

 the man who has sufficient nerve to attempt a corner in 



' Venezuela is now being contended for by several generals on the one 

 hand, and President Castro who still holds Caracas and some other towns 

 on the other (August 1902). 



