# Myths and Legends Beyond Our Borders/The Alligator-Tree

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THE ALLIGATOR-TREE
WHAT the English call the alligator-tree, that grows on the Tehuantepec isthmus, is known to the natives as the "alligator's tail." It affords a wood that promises to be of value in the building arts, and its rough, thorny bark suggests the skin of the lizard whose name it takes. In days of old the alligator was more respected than now, but for a different reason. It was because he was wise. He was represented in stone, clay, and wood, was painted on walls, and princes bowed before him. He became vastly proud of this distinction, and began to put on airs about it. Among the beliefs in his family was that of its need to live among the rivers. Salt water and cold water meant death. But the younger members of the tribe were discontented. They sniffed at the axioms of the fathers, and scorned the notion that they were to stay in one country forever. ​They would travel and learn. They had heard men talking of the land beyond the mountains, where great cities were, of a sea that spread to the world's edge, of alligators larger and wiser than those of the Gulf side; so they held a meeting in the deepest and darkest forest on the Coatzacoalcos River and derided their elders for superstitious old fossils, and resolved to be at least as free as men were. "Those queer little creatures, with only two legs, thin skins, and no teeth to speak of, who cannot stay a minute under water, nor go for two days without food—they travel where they like, and why, therefore, should not we? Their gods are surely their betters, and the whole earth should be ours."
This speech, by one of the party, was instantly approved, and soon after a crowd of young alligators, several hundred in number, began the passage of the mountains. They ascended the Coatzacoalcos through the night, coming into an open country near the hills just as the sun was rising. Great was the surprise of all to find that the river was coming to an end, for they had supposed that they could cross to the Pacific without walking on dry ground. What excited their alarm, also, was the chill. The water grew so cold as they ascended that they could finally bear it no longer, but climbed upon the bank, where the sun fell warm upon them, and fell asleep. At nightfall came a god of the hills. "What are these c ​monsters doing in my country?" he cried. "Have I not warned all creatures of the coast to keep to their own kingdom? Up with you, spirits of the springs, and help me to punish these fellows."
Then came the water elves capering down the hill-sides, curling and fawning about his feet, making a gurgling laughter as they thought of the surprise in store for the alligators. They whirled about and about until each had bored a hole two or three feet deep in the earth; then they seized the sleeping reptiles, and plunged them, head first, into the holes, with their tails in the air, and there they are, at the edge of the tierra templada, to this day. One alligator, who had hidden in the wood when the water sprites came down, escaped and swam down the river to his old home, where he told the sorrowing parents of the fate that had come upon the youngsters in punishment of their rashness, and the elders mourned, but vainly. Never since then have the alligators tried their fortunes out of the warm coast lands and waters.