168 



CENTRAL AMERICA. 



" For nights after, Don Jorge, I could 

 not sleep, or, if I did for a moment, awoke, 

 fancying going again on my maldito voyage 

 down the river, sometimes soused to the 

 bottom of a pool, and sometimes tumbling 

 and rolling about among the big stones, until 

 at last I took such a violent hatred to this 

 particular alligator that I used to lie awake 

 all night thinking how to be revenged. I 

 used to go to the pool every morning to try 

 and get a sight of him, and one morning I 

 did see him ; but what made me still more 

 angry, was to see the loop of the lasso still 

 round his neck, for all the world like a neck- 

 lace : he must have gnawed off the remainder 

 about a yard from the noose. I then went 

 home, loaded my long Spanish gun very 

 carefully with two balls, and, taking with 

 me a cur of a dog, who could do nothing but 

 yell and howl, I returned to the pool and 

 tied the dog to a tree close to one of the 

 alligator's paths. I then took a long string, 

 and, making it fast to the cur's leg, hid my- 

 self behind another tree, and began to pull 

 hard at the string, and the dog began to 

 howl lustily. In a short time the lagartcfs 

 nose appeared above water, and then his 

 eyes and head : both dog and alligator must 



