ALLIGATOKS OF LOUISIANA AND TEXAS. 275 



objects, which seem to baffle every endeavour to seize 

 them. Closely-corked bottles are sometimes thrown 

 for the same purpose, and when the alligator seizes 

 one of these in his formidable jaws and crushes it 

 up, the water is reddened with his blood. 



I have seen the negroes capture the alligator with 

 a lasso just as if he were a wild bull or horse, and 

 I had even heard (upon reliable authority) of their 

 being blown up by means of a tin box of gunpowder, 

 (which they had swallowed in a bait) and an electric 

 spark, — an experiment which I was determined one 

 day to try. 



During the very hot season the alligators take 

 refuge in the rivers, and the fishermen withdraw 

 their nets in the morning in fear lest they find an 

 alligator among its meshes. As soon as the cold 

 season approaches, the alligators ensconce themselves 

 among the roots of the trees, or bury themselves in 

 the mud to avoid the cold. The negroes catch large 

 numbers of them in winter, and boil them down for 

 the sake of the oil which they contain. 



On the Texan coasts and about Lake Sabine there 

 are vast salt marshes (including a large district called 

 the Shaking Prairie^-), where alligators abound, and 



* This praii-ie, which occupies a considerable space in Louisiana and 

 a great deal of Texas, is caused by a law of nature, which is very ana- 

 lagous to that which causes the Artesian wells, only it is v/ater that 

 works in the one case and earth in the other. The water falls into the 

 depths of the Artesian well, and springs up under the pressure of the 

 strata to which it is subjected. In like manner, the Shaking Prairie 



