198 BEASTS AND MEN 
with lightning speed out of the basin. If one of the animals 
had attacked me the rest would have followed suit and | 
should have been done for. I know from personal experience 
that when these creatures have secured prey, they all seize it 
in their jaws and try to tear it away from each other. My 
fate would, indeed, have been unenviable. 
Though I myself have never fallen into the clutches of these 
animals, | have witnessed them engaging in fights among 
themselves of the most savage and merciless description. 
When once an alligator has seized an enemy it will not leave 
go, even though its head be broken to pieces. I saw sucha 
fight in the eighties when we had received a consignment of 
nearly 300 alligators, mostly from one to four feet in length, but 
including half a dozen which measured from ten to twelve feet. 
All these animals, having been kept ever since their capture 
in small cages, had become extremely ill tempered, and it was 
necessary to observe the utmost caution in dealing with them. 
I took the boxes and placed them one by one in the en- 
closure destined for the reptiles. When each box had been 
' placed in the enclosure J tore off the boards at the head-end 
of it, and by prodding the animal’s tail with a stick induced it 
to walk out. The first alligator walked quietly out of his box 
and into the pond; so did the next three, and all seemed to 
be going smoothly. But as the fifth and sixth were released 
they rushed upon one another without any apparent reason 
and engaged in a desperate encounter. In a few minutes the 
whole basin was a compact knot of snarling animals biting 
savagely at each other and lashing the water wildly with their 
tails. Seizing each other with their powerful jaws, the 
stronger would dash about in the water, dragging the weaker 
one with him, the jaws of the latter snapping impotently at 
his foe. The water was splashed high into the air and gradu- 
ally became red with the blood from many frightful wounds. 
We could do nothing but look on, except, indeed, to fill the 
basin with water, so that the weaker animals might find refuge 
underneath. 
