420 BLACK RIVER. 



people tugging at the hook in his throat, that 

 would make his chivalry a more desperate adventure 

 than David Brown's, for his beast's efforts to get 

 forward only more effectually set him fast where he 

 was." 



The last narrative is of a more tragic character, and 

 bears out the statements of Mr. Water ton as to the 

 ferocity of these powerful reptiles. The scene of the 

 incident was Black River in St. Elizabeth's, where 

 Crocodiles abound. 



lUh July, 1849. — " On the eastern bank of the 

 river, just above the bridge, and right within a quay 

 and jutting cranehouse attached to a long line of 

 stores, a Crocodile, some twelve months ago, snatched 

 off from the beach a young girl thirteen or fourteen 

 years of age, who was washing a towel at the river, in 

 company with an elder companion, at nightfall. " She 

 had been warned that it was dangerous to stand at all 

 within the water after dark, for Alligators, as these 

 Crocodiles of ours are erroneously called, would be 

 then prowling, and fatal casualties had occurred. 

 Just as the little braggart boasted that she heeded no 

 such danger, a scream for help, and a cry, ' Lord, 

 have mercy upon me ! Alligator has caught me ! ' 

 apprised her companion, intent on her own washing, 

 that the girl was carried off. She was instantly 

 snatched under water and drowned. The body was 

 found some days after half-devoured, and two Croco- 

 diles, one nine feet long and the other seventeen, 

 were hunted down, and taken with portions of the 

 flesh undigested within them. The bowels had been 

 eaten away ; — the lower limbs torn off; half of one 

 thigh only remaining. The body had been carried 



