Under the Southern Cross 
A Mild Night Adventure in a Mangrove Swamp 
—Seining for Alligators 
By JULIAN BURROUGHS 
A LOUD noise, vague and confused, com¬ 
ing at broken intervals, attracted our 
notice, bringing us over the wharf to¬ 
ward the spot whence the sound seemed to come. 
A sight rewarded us that I would not willingly 
have missed. On the clear green water some 
negroes were fishing, their method being —to us 
—most unusual, and the setting for the picture 
they made most beautiful. Their net—some kind 
of a seine several hundred feet long—had been 
run out in a great oval, as the floats indicated, 
and their dark shapely dugout—once no doubt 
some proud, orchid-laden cottonwood—was sta¬ 
tioned across one end. Lengthwise of the boat, 
hung on two poles like a tennis net, was an¬ 
other net about six feet high. The two negroes 
in the boat, their splendid muscles showing 
through their ragged clothes, lounged idly, hold¬ 
ing their heavy paddles across the gunwales. 
On the dock in striking contrast was a group of 
East Indian coolies waiting to be sent back to 
Ceylon, their soft flowing robes of many sub¬ 
dued colors setting off their thin brown faces 
and many silver ornaments. Overhead towered 
the Blue Mountains, mighty, blue and cloud- 
capped ; around the shore barbaric cocoanut 
palms almost hid the low white houses of the city. 
Suddenly the whole dreamy, gorgeously colored 
tropical picture became alive, vibrating with ac¬ 
tion—the negroes in the boat with a yell struck 
the side of their dugout with their paddles, the 
coolies on the wharf set up a shout, making a 
full-throated din. Instantly, as if in response, 
flip, flip, out of the green water flashed silver 
mullets, darting through the air in a beautiful 
curve that brought them against the net fence 
above the boat, where they fell back into the 
bottom. After a dozen or so had thus been 
caught, quiet returned, the whole performance 
being repeated over and over until the bottom 
of the boat was a mass of silver fish. Had it 
not been for the tennis net, the mullets would 
certainly have gone clear over the dugout with 
a wide margin for safety. Why the noise made 
them jump when they did and what part the 
seine played we could not determine. 
“Anyway,” said K., “it’s just like this country 
—a strap-hinge country.” 
“Yes, a strap-hinge on a solid mahogany door,” 
I answered. “And this isn’t getting us over to 
Salt Pond.” 
Thereupon we finished loading the boat and 
with the heavy hardwood oars pulled out on the 
shining harbor. Four black British men-of-war 
lay idly at anchor, the sailors from which were 
celebrating in the town, as we knew only too 
well from the experiences of the night before. 
Always the Blue Mountain giants towered over 
us, sometimes hidden by clouds, always the buz¬ 
zards sailed over and over the white city, half 
A JAMAICA DELICACY—A BLACK CRAB. 
hidden among the cocoanuts and mangroves, al¬ 
ways the gentle breeze caressed the green water, 
green except for the patches of purple-brown 
where the coral came near the surface. As we 
rowed along I gazed down through the clear 
water at these coral patches, the round and 
branching forms taking every shade from yel¬ 
low to brown. I tried to break off a bunch by 
noosing it with a rope, but was unable to budge 
the piece I got hold of. Low marshes of man¬ 
groves where snowy egrets sailed soon appeared, 
marking the mouth of the Rio Cobre. A low 
concrete fort, gloomy, silent and grim, was slow¬ 
ly passed as we swung easily at the oars. Across 
the water Port Royal—once the richest and 
wickedest city in the world, now a group of 
white buildings hidden amid plumed cocoanuts— 
grew nearer and nearer. Sometimes we were 
startled by the tremendous leaps of sharks at 
play, causing bursts of spray and roaring splashes 
where they broke water. “Not a good place for 
a swim,” I observed, whereupon K. said: 
“I had a swim here last winter; got upset from 
a sailboat. The nigger who was sailing didn’t 
know his business, but haughtily said : ‘I’m the 
h’artist at the ’elm, sah,’ and we couldn’t do a 
thing with him until over we went, and I found 
myself under the mainsail with a halyard or 
some other rope tangled all around my feet. 
Sharks were ju,st playing 'all about. Well, I sup¬ 
pose the rope around my feet kej>t them from 
getting cold, for anyway I held my breath and 
untangled the rope, dove and came up clear. I 
lost all my plates along with the one of the 
alligator riding the dynamite explosion. I’ll tell 
you about that later.” 
“What became of the ‘h’artist at the ’elm, 
sah’ ?” I asked, betwe.en strokes. 
“Oh, that didn’t trouble him any—I see Mr. 
Rowley now; their boat is ready; hurry!” 
With an extra spurt we pulled up to the dock 
at Port Henderson, where we joined our friends. 
After some delicious pineapple, every slice of 
which covered a dinner plate, and four-year-old 
Master Rowley had eaten half a dozen or so 
bananas from the bunch that always hung from 
the front porch, we re-embarked. Out of the 
harbor and on to the blue Caribbean we rowed 
over water so darkly blue that it seemed as if 
it would stain anything it touched. I could 
hardly keep from 'dipping my handkerchief into 
the waves to persuade myself that it would not 
really come out as blue as from a dye. Steep 
volcanic hills, dry, hot, parched and covered with 
cactus, dropped astern until the mangrove swamps 
appeared and the entrance of Salt Pond was at 
hand. There is no tide to speak of in this part 
of the Caribbean, and yet a powerful current 
was swirling in through the sandy gut, going in 
to replace that lost by evaporation. 
Inside, I gazed about eagerly, impatient to ex¬ 
plore every foot of this strange looking place, 
anticipating the sport before us. To the right 
were the last of the hot cactus-sentineled hills; 
on all other sides the low mangrove, reaching 
out across the distance, silent and mysterious. 
The big seine with which we were to net alli¬ 
gators the next morning was inspected. I was 
instructed in my duties for the night. We rowed 
across the pond—a long pull—to the fish house, 
a rough weather-beaten shack of poles and old 
boards. From thorn trees nearby came the song 
of our yellow warbler mingled with that of the 
Jamaica mockingbird. Like a colt I ran down 
the beach, all eyes and ears. Here were strange 
tropical beans; there a little flock of pretty 
wandering tattlers, little white-vested birds that 
wander all over the earth; here was a dead alli¬ 
gator hung in a thorn tree, his teeth grinning 
savagely, and here were fresh alligator tracks. 
But a few weeks before I had been following 
mink, muskrat and otter tracks in the snow of 
