430 A DESCRIPTION OF 
the crocodile. The principal distinction is, that the 
former has its head and part of the neck more smooth 
than the latter, and the snout is considerably more wide 
and flat, as well as more rounded at the extremity. The 
largest of these animals do not exceed eighteen feet. 
Alligators are natives of the warmer parts of America, 
and are the dread of all living animals. Their voracity 
is so great, that they do not spare even mankind. A 
short time before M. Navarette was at the Manillas, he 
was told that, as a young woman was washing her feet 
at one of the rivers, an Alligator seized and carried her 
off. Her husband, to whom she had been but just mar- 
ried, hearing her screams, threw himself headlong into 
the water, and, with a dagger in his hand, pursued the 
robber. He overtook and fought the animal with such 
success, as to recover his wife ; but, unfortunately for her 
brave rescuer, she died before she could be brought to the 
shore. 
The voice of the Alligator is loud and harsh. They 
have an unpleasant and powerful musky scent. M. 
Pages says, that near one of the rivers in America, where 
they were numerous, their effluvia was so strong as to 
impregnate his provisons, and even to give them the 
nauseous taste of rotten musk. This effluvium proceeds 
chiefly from four glands, two of which are situated in 
the groin, near each thigh, and the other two at the 
breast, under each fore leg. Dampier informs us that, 
when his men killed an Alligator, they generally took 
out these glands, and, after having dried them, wore them 
in their hats by way of perfume. 
The following anecdote of the voracity of this ani- 
mal is related by Waterton in his " Wanderings in 
South America :" " One Sunday evening, some years 
ago, as I was walking with Don Felipe de Ynciarte, 
governor of Angustura, on the bank of the Oroonoque, 
' Stop here a minute or two, Don Carlos,' said he 
