ALLIGATOR KILLING. 189 
next followed, nearly all of a pack of fine deer hounds. 
It may be easily imagined that the last outrage was not 
passed over with indifference. The leisure time of every 
day was devoted to their extermination, until the cold 
of winter rendered them torpid, and buried them up in 
the earth. 
The following summer, as is naturally the case, the 
swamp, from the intense heat, contracted in its dimen- 
sions; a number of artificial ditches drained off the 
water, and left the alligators little else to live in than mud, 
which was about the consistency of good mortar: still 
the alligators clung with singular tenacity to their na- 
tive homesteads, as if perfectly conscious that the com- 
ing fall would bring them rain. While thus exposed, 
a general attack was planned and carried into execution, 
and nearly every alligator was destroyed. It was a fear- 
ful and disgusting sight to see them rolling about in the 
thick sediment, striking their immense jaws together in 
the agony of death. 
Dreadful to relate, the stench of these decaying bo- 
dies in the hot sun, soon produced an unthought-of evil. 
Teams of oxen were used in vain to haul them away ; 
the progress of corruption under the influence of a tro- 
pical climate made the attempt fruitless. 
On the very edge of the swamp, with nothing ex- 
posed but the head, lay one huge monster, evidently six- 
teen or eighteen feet long; he had been wounded in the 
melée, and made incapable of moving, and the heat had 
