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houses, men, and beasts, to the ocean: the finny tribes, disturbed 
in their calm retreats, are impelled to the embouchure of the river: 
where, led by instinct, or accidentally driven by the monsoon 
winds, they meet the monsters of the deep ready to devour them. 
The floods from the mountains impetuously rush to this outlet, and 
there meet a sandy bar, accumulated by the western surges, which 
presents a formidable barrier between the contending waters: 
Neptune’s terrific billows dash furiously against the river streams, 
precipitating over the bar, and present a scene easier to conceive 
than describe. The floods contain immense shoals of fish, which, 
unused to such violent convulsions, attempt to escape the noise 
and fury by leaping over the bar, into the distended jaws of the 
tyrants waiting to devour their timid prey. An alligator is some- 
times involuntarily impelled to act a part in this extraordinary 
gymnasium; and of course perishes in the ocean. 
