314 SPORTING AND 



him up on the bank at once, no doubt 

 quite as much to his astonishment as ours. 

 He was a monster in size, and although 

 I had seen and shot a good many 

 alligators, I never remembered seeing 

 one so large. It took us, I should 

 think, half an hour to kill the brute, the 

 whole population turning out with Idthies 

 (thick sticks), men, women and children 

 all pounding away at him ; and many 

 were tumbled over by the sweeps of his 

 powerful tail. When I said it took half 

 an hour to kill the monster, I should have 

 said, that it was fully that time before the 

 edge of his fury, was taken off, for I do 

 not think he was really dead, for twenty 

 four hours after he came out of the river. 

 I ordered the men to open him, when a 

 strange medley of objects were discovered 

 in his stomach. First, there were portions 



