Capture and Death of a large Alligator. 313 



Art. XIV. — Account of the Capture and Death of a large Alli- 

 gator. Communicated for this Journal at the request of the 

 Editors, by a gentleman concerned in the affair. 



TO THE EDITORS. 



The interest you have manifested in the head of the alh'gator, 

 deposited in the room of the Society of Natural History in this 

 city, (see the annexed drawing.) and the request you have made 

 that I would acquaint you with the circumstances of its capture, 

 induce me to offer you the following sketch. Whatever imper- 

 fections may appear in it, must be attributed to the time that has 

 passed since my residence at Manilla, near which place the alli- 

 gator was killed. 



The lake, from which flows tho river on which Manilla is sit- 

 uated, is about twenty miles from that place. It is of irregular 

 form, and from many points looks like three distinct bodies of 

 water of about equal dimensions, caused by a long island nearly 

 in the centre, and a wide tract of land parallel to and about eight 

 miles from it. The latter, called Halahala, was a plantation 

 which I occasionally visited, and was the property of a French 

 gentleman, distinguished for his hospitality, and for a strength of 

 character which had led him to establish himself successfully, 

 alone and unaided, amidst a barbarous people, whose respect and 

 love he had secured by his uniform courage, justice, and benevo- 

 lence. A small part of the estate was cultivated by the hired 

 Indians, whose huts formed a picturesque little village near the 

 house of the proprietor, and the remainder, embracing a circuit of 

 fifteen or twenty miles, gave every variety of natural beauty. 

 ^s. chain of high hills ran through the centre, whose summits 

 were covered with grass so luxuriant as often to rise over the 

 head of a man on horseback ; and the forests on either side, ex- 

 tending in many places to the lake, were the growth of centuries. 

 The axe had never thinned them, and they stood in their massive 

 magnificence as nature had planted and reared them ; some in 

 fantastic forms, which gave them so much the appearance of 

 works of art, as to be distinguished by the names of things they 

 were supposed to resemble ; some, vanquished by the creeping 

 plant, which strangles in its close and deadly embrace what at 

 first it clings to for support and protection, had struggled against 



Vol. xxxTiii, No. 2.— Jan.-March, 1840. 40 



