570 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[April 9, 1910. 
fish and waters of fire. Naturally, his mother 
believed the first, but flying fish and waters of 
fire was an utter impossibility. I wish she could 
have seen Salt Pond that night—it was certainly 
waters of fire. The fish—and the pond was alive 
with them—left trails of fire, darting this way 
and that, every move they made being as plainly 
seen as a torch at night. The net was simply 
a net of molten gold visible from afar, the oars 
and boats turned up waters of glowing embers, 
jellyfish caught in the net were shining globules 
of fire. To dip up a handful of water and let 
it run back through the fingers made a crack¬ 
ling light that illuminated our faces and the 
sides of the boat. It was a poor night for fish¬ 
ing ; the phosphorescence scared the fish away 
from the net, we were told. 
Toward midnight the southern cross rose over 
the mangroves. Disappointing constellation, it 
had but four small stars. In South America or 
Australia no doubt many eyes watched its course 
through the heavens. 
It seems that the Salt Pond with its fish be¬ 
longs to the fruit company, the negroes fishing 
there by paying so much a pound on all fish 
caught, it being the belief of Mr. Rowley that 
the negroes landed a part of the fish to a con¬ 
federate at the inlet, thus avoiding paying on a 
part of the catch. I therefore stayed at the 
shack while the rest of the party “laid for” the 
confederate. 
It \yas a sullen and vicious looking crowd that 
awoke me toward morning to superintend the 
weighing of their fish ; one man, the leader, being 
a most perfect incarnation of what I had always 
imagined Mephistopheles to be. Though a negro 
there must have been the blood of some of the 
old Spanish or Portuguese pirates in his veins. 
I was glad of the .38 caliber revolver in my 
pocket. 
The confederate did not show up, the day 
coming quickly, still and hot. We fried fish and 
found them good, dipping them in the water for 
salt. After the fish and bacon, cocoa, cereal and 
bananas, .we felt more like tackling the alliga¬ 
tors. On the still bright water, as smooth as if 
polished, we could see alligators in many places, 
just their eyes and noses showing. I would not 
have believed that such a large creature could 
be so deft and motionless, so to speak, in its 
movements and at the same time go with such 
terrible speed. The two eyes that showed above 
the water like the knots on a sunken log, and 
the lower smaller nostrils, disappeared at our 
approach so quietly that we could not tell when 
they went, and not the slightest ripple showed 
on the water. In the knee-deep muddy water of 
the inner pond an alligator swam out of the 
shoals near shore to the deeper water, going 
like a shaft of light from a searchlight, making 
a boiling, muddy wake with such terrific speed 
that it was the same width throughout, even- 
edged and sharply defined. 
“It was just here,” said K., “that I saw what 
a stick of dynamite could do to an alligator. 
You know how mullets will rush up and swim 
around and around anything thrown in the 
water. Well, the negroes throw dynamite in, 
short-fused, for them to swim around and in 
this way they became expert with explosives. 
So when I had failed to get any alligator pic¬ 
tures. the negro said: ‘I get ’im for you, sah,’ 
and out with a stick of dynamite. There was a 
big ’gator right in here, so we sent the stick 
down after him. I was all ready with the 
camera when ‘bung’ up he came, mouth wide 
open in amazement, riding right on top of an 
up-heave of water. It was so funny I almost 
forgot to squeeze the bulb. That was one of 
the plates that got spoiled.” 
One of the negroes with us that morning Mr. 
Rowley called Morgan. Truly, I believe he was 
a lineal descendant of Morgan, the destroyer. 
And why not? Anyway, he looked as if he was; 
with one end of the seine in his huge hand he 
see-sawed through the shoulder-deep water, try¬ 
ing to get it around an alligator. Tireless and 
resourceful, he led every attack that the alli¬ 
gators always baffled. 
“They crawl under the net; they crawl under 
the net every time!” Mr. Rowley shouted in a 
rage. Swarms of mullets jumped over the net, 
out and in, in and out, just for fun; but big 
tarpon, gleaming and silver-sided, came in at 
nearly every haul. 
At last even Morgan grew discouraged and we 
gave up trying to net an alligator. They were 
incredibly shy, and this, coupled with their ability 
to crawl under the net, made it impossible to 
seine one. Perhaps it is just as well; such teeth 
as an alligator possesses with his strength would 
have made lively work for us, and someone 
might have been hurt. Crocodiles have been 
known to attack a rhino and drag him under the 
water, eating him alive, and as a matter of fact 
a boy was caught and eaten a short time before 
across the harbor within the limits of Kingston. 
After a swim in the swirling waters of the 
inlet where we saw a splendid kalapiever, like 
a salmon, but with a lamprey eel attached to 
him, we pulled away over the blue waters of the 
Caribbean, past the cactus hills and into the 
green waters of the harbor. At Port Henderson 
the fishing boats were coming in from hoisting 
their nets outside, unloading the gaudy and fan¬ 
tastic tropical fish—blue, red, gold, black and 
orange and so on—packing them on donkeys to 
take away to market. Pelicans flew by, vener¬ 
able solemn birds, looking exactly like an old 
fisherman in a skiff, making me think of birds 
sitting down to fly. I suppose it is their domed 
heads drawn back to rest their bill with its 
pouch on their breast that give them this curious 
look, so unlike the strenuous, hard-working ap¬ 
pearance of our birds that fly with rigidly out¬ 
stretched necks. We never got tired watching 
them sail past with measured wing beats and 
seeing them plunge down suddenly after fish. 
Though the alligators had outwitted us, we 
looked on our little expedition as a great suc¬ 
cess, and basking in the caressing tropical 
breezes, drinking in the color and novelty of 
it all, we rowed easily toward the city. We had 
gotten close to nature and the natives, had shed 
the tourists’ mantle, had added another page to 
memory. The Blue Mountains that pierced the 
clouds 7,000 feet above us—with their goose, wild 
strawberries, ferns, clover, hibiscus, coffee plan¬ 
tations and plaintive haunting note of the soli¬ 
taire—how different from the thorns, cactus, 
cracking mud and alligators we had left behind 
us! Jamaica, land of doves and hummingbirds, 
of sugar, coffee and bananas, is surely a land of 
contrasts as well. 
The Freshet 
By EDWIN C 
W HEN it seems that winter is to be peren¬ 
nial, there comes, to pacify disgruntled 
mortals, a day snatched from June; a 
day of mellow sun and balmy south wind. High 
in the hills the snow fades like vanishing 
wraiths, the brooks run weeping to the lower 
levels, the earth still adamant with the frost 
spurns the moisture, and the river, choked, dis¬ 
gorges it along its banks until an ever-welcom¬ 
ing sea swallows its mite. 
Slowly at first the flood seeks the level of the 
banks, then surmounting them charges with the 
speed of wild horses across the lowlands, chas¬ 
ing the muskrat from his hole, lifting the bond¬ 
age of ice from the scattered ponds and carry¬ 
ing confusion to the human who has not budded 
upon rock. 
It is a memorable sight to cross the wide 
bottom lands of the river when the water is 
running up hill in the brooks and ditches, when 
it creeps into sinks and hollows through unsus¬ 
pected runways and into the dead grass under¬ 
foot, then to retrace one’s steps a few hours 
later and note the changes. Gullies and ditches 
overflowing, shallow lakes sprung up in one’s 
path, swamp oaks and elms and maples stand¬ 
ing out stark in the rising flood, landmark after 
landmark that one has known disappearing, until 
one looks upon a new and strange country. 
Steadily the tide rises. Over night it takes a 
DICKENSON 
giant leap and morning shows a mammoth, tree- 
studded lake with here and there a brown, tree- 
capped knoll making a last stand against the en¬ 
croaching waters. As far as the distant hills 
across the valley, can be caught its glimmer 
among the scattered lowland groves. Some¬ 
where in its mic[st runs the river, its identity 
almost lost, but for the swirling ebb of its 
current. 
Then the south wind is hurled back, maybe, 
by old Boreas. Winter, fighting for its waning 
throne, stiffens. The sun, filtered through an¬ 
other atmosphere, loses its cheer; the hills dry 
their tears, and the freshet, unfed, diminishes 
hourly. The backwater, hesitating, is caught in 
the nip of the frost and slinks away beneath 
the cover of its fast congealing surface, leav¬ 
ing behind a trail of drift of broken branches 
and girded trunks. It flees before arrested win¬ 
ter. 
But not for long. Spring has the upper hand 
now. The sun and the south wind attack the 
enemy in its stronghold, the far hills of the 
north. The warm day brings others. The back 
of winter is broken and no more can it rally 
to the defense. On comes the flood, this time 
confident in the maturity of its assault. It over¬ 
reaches its old mark; it sweeps the last vestige 
of the ice away. The earth drinks greedily now, 
but nature has given a surfeit. The highest 
