636 



THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



bank, and, suddenly emerging, furiously attacks the tiger, who never declines the 

 combat ; and though in the struggle the Gavial frequently loses his eyes and receives 

 dreadful wounds on the head, he at length drags his adversary into the water, and 

 there devours him. 



On the American streams, the stillness of the night is often interrupted by the 

 clacking of the alligator's teeth, and the lashing of his tail upon the waters. The 

 singular and awful sound of his voice can also readily be distinguished from that 

 of all the other beasts of the wilderness. It is like a suppressed sigh, bursting forth 

 all of a sudden, and so loud as to be heard above a mile off. First, one emits this 

 horrible noise ; then another answers him ; and far and wide the repetition of the 

 sound proclaims that the alligators are awake. 



As in the case of snakes, the size to which alligators and crocodiles attain is grossly 

 exaggerated. Thorpe was gravely assured by a gentleman, " not given to big stories," 

 that he once saw an alligator whose jaws opened at least five feet ; and another gentle- 

 man, and a Congressman to boot, persisted that he once shot in the Bay of Pascagoula 

 an alligator twenty-one feet long. But a planter of a scientific turn of mind, residing in 

 the noted alligator region of the Red River in Arkansas for years, made a standing offer 

 of a hundred dollars for an alligator dead or alive, of more than twelve feet in length. 

 It is probable that since the introduction of steamers upon the Mississippi, and its 

 lower tributaries, that the alligator finds so many enemies that he is cut off before 

 reaching his full stature ; for Audubon expressly affirms that he saw one who he 

 judged to be some centuries old, who measured seventeen feet in length. In his time 

 these monsters must have had a jolly time of it in the Red River, where he often saw 

 hundreds of them at once, the smaller ones riding on the backs of the larger, and all 

 of them groaning and bellowing like so many mad bulls ready for a fight, and so ut- 

 terly indifferent to the presence of man that, unless shot at, they would take no notice 

 of a boat at a few yards' distance. 



South America is yet a secure home of the alligator, where undisturbed by man 

 he attains his full size. Orton in ascending the river Guayas on the western coast, 

 says that* " the chief representative of animal life is the lazy, ugly alligator. Large 

 numbers of these monsters may be seen on the mud-bank basking in the hot sun, or 

 asleep with their mouths wide open. But upon the Amazon they bear the palm for 

 ugliness, size, and strength. In the sum.mer the main river swarms with them ; in • 

 the wet season they retreat to the interior lakes and forests. About Obidos where 

 many of the pools dry up in the fine months, the alligator buries itself in the mud, 

 and sleeps till the rainy season returns. It is scarcely exaggerating to say that the 

 waters of the Solimoens are as well stocked with large alligators in the dry season as 

 a ditch with us is with tadpoles in the summer. There are three or four species in 

 the Amazon. The largest, the Jucare-uassu of the natives, attains a length of twenty 

 feet. Sluggish on land, the alligator is very agile in its native element. It never 

 attacks man when on his guard, but is cunning enough to know when it may do this 

 with safety. It lays its eggs, about twenty, at some distance from the river bank, 

 covering them with sticks. They are about four inches long, of an elliptical shape, 

 with a rough calcareous shell. Negro venders sell them cooked in the streets of 

 Par^." 



*The Andes and the Amazon, 35, 29e 



