112 Timehrr. 
Beginning to feel a little tired and extremely hungry, I suggested breakfast 
and we adjourned to a neighbouring ranger’s cottage where the blue-hens and 
snipe were soon transformed into an excellent curry with mangoes and rice. 
After breakfast I wandered round with my pipe, and examined the creole 
coffee as I believe it is called although really the same as the Arabian or Mocha 
species, though I soon discovered that it was the Liberian variety. 
Wild tobacco was growing in great profusion, and choosing a dozen ripe leaves 
I gathered them to cure at home. If you do not want your tobacco to turn 
mouldy, do not use any sugar in curing it. High wines and petrol are quite 
sufficient if your leaves are properly sweated before drying them. 
Mountains palms and mangoes occupied the rest of my attention until an 
East Indian, coming up, announced that there were several alligators showing 
in the canals further down. In common with most of my race I have a healthy 
hatred of these antediluvian monsters, of whom I have read that they are in all 
probability the most ancient race of animals or rather reptiles on this globe. 
So I opened the top wads of a couple of cartridges, and put a little lard on the 
No. 4 shot and forced the wads back again. Strolling down the side of 
the canal with the natives all clucking like so many baby alligators, I saw a 
mound-like object rise slowly about three inches out of the water. It was the 
comical brain-pan of a fair-sized alligator looking for her babies, luckily in the 
opposite direction, so that she showed me the back of her head only about 
fifteen yards from where I was standing. At the report of my gun it seemed as 
if the bottom of the canal had been blown out, so great was the commotion. I 
began to fear that I had only wounded her, but the swirl was so great and the 
water so muddy that I could not fire again. 
Mrs. Alligator however made a rush for the opposite parapet and tried to 
struggle up, but the poor brute had had most of her brains blown out and could not 
make any further sustained effort, though the vitality of these reptiles is almost 
beyond belief. Another shot broke her back and put her out of her misery 
for she fell into the water and turned belly up whilst the coolies with great glee 
pierced her through and through with their boarspears. Her body was dragged on 
to the bank, where the turkey buzzards or carrion crows soon demolished her. 
She was nearly five and a half feet long from nose to tip of tail, a fair size for a 
canal alligator. I have heard a rumour that there is an old patriarch alligator 
not two miles from Georgetown thirteen feet long, and about a century old, I 
have often wondered how they measured either his inches or his age. 
Being thoroughly tired out I welcomed the sight of a mule ridden by a black lad 
coming up the dam. Of course he is not saddled, but I want to get home, and 
Orphan Boy is an easy paced mule, so [ mount and canter off. I have not 
travelled many yards before I begin to wonder whether the absence of parents 
makes the presence of Orphan Boy’s back bone so conspicuous, but the mule 
knowing his stable is in view quickens to a gallop and my discomfort is soon 
ended in a Berbice chair, 
I might add in closing that for a true all-round sportsman Demerara is per- 
fect Paradise. A shot-gun is, however, of more use than a rifle, 
