The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-11-28
ALL ABOUT ALLIGATORS.
WHERE THEY LIVE AND HOW
THEY AMUSE THEMSELVES.
DIP a Florida River Where Thousands
of Them Were Sleeping on the

From the Ne,c York Times.

of Them Were Sleeping on the
Banks
From, the Neie York Times.
We had been waiting impatiently at
Palma Sofa for the day to arrive when we
could take the steam launch Alice and go
HID the Manatee river among the alligators.
No day could be set in advance, for every
thing depended upon the weather. 1t most
be the afternoon of hot. sunny day, when
the ungainIy beasts would be basking on the
river banks. We were going TO see not a
few Stragglers lying lonesome here and there
but droves and regiments of alligators,
swarms of them, lying as thick almost as
shells on the beach. l had been told this
once before on the eve of a trip up the
Manatee, but of course did not believe it;
It did not seem possible that these great
brutes could anywhere exist in such num-
bers. But learned then that the stories
were not exaggerated, SO l was prepared on
this trip for the wonders we were to see.
Several times have been up the Manatee
river and in whole days ride have not
seen a single alligator, so l can imagine
how easily some future traveller on the west
cause he does not stumble over an alligator
under every bush may imagine that all the
alligator stories are grossly exaggerated
You might as well look for bananas
growing wild in Central park as look for
alligators on a chilly day. They like mud
and warmth, and where they cannot fad
the two together they will not condeScend
10 show themselves. So far in our journey
through Florida we had not seen them in
far 70, Ii
at Maitland, and some little fellows along
the shores Of the Ocklewaha river. and, |
must confess, that have never anywhere.
even III the Manatee, seen any of those
giant alligators we sometimes read about
/ have heard of specimens eighteen eaet
long, and Of great many twelve feet long,
but they never have happened to fall in my
way.
When you see an alligator ton feet long.
you may put him down for one of the old SET
tlers; and the vast majority do not measure
six feet. Nor have / ever seen anything in
their conduct to warrant implicit faith in
the stories of terrible fights with alligators
If one should re caught some distance from
the water and headed of, he might. per-
haps, make a fight to get hack to the river,
but not if he could avoid it. They are
cowardly fellows, and choose summing places
on the river banks so close to the water
one squirm and disappear. Even ia the
water l do not know of any case
of an alligator attacking a maa; he
prefers to run. He has hardly q re-
deemirg trait. Certainly he is not hand
some; his eye gives no sign of intelligence,
and be is as nearly useless as possible, unless
1t may be to kill and eat the smaller fry in
these teeming southern rivers. To go into
some big New York establishment and pay
~ oil -. obi, -
naturally leads one 10 think the skins must
be very valuable, but the few hunters who
make business of killing alligators for
their hides shoot them with rifles, skin
them, cure the hides, and then sell the skins
for about 60 cents each-and at this rate an
alligator hunter grows rich with great de-
liberation.
The Alice steamed up to the Palma Sofa
wharf with Mr.. Warner aud fireman on
board. She is hardly launch, hardly
yacht, and hardly a tug. but she is well
adapted for the waters she was built TO
1avlgate, being shallow and easily handled
She has pilot house forward and a COM
Portable cabin and roomy cockpit aft, and
stirS up the waters of the Ma aztec at a
lively rate. In former times her mission
was to run up and down the river in search
of stray logs that should have floated down
to Mr.. Warmers mill but that ran into the
banks and halted by the way, and to carry
Mr.. Warner and his agents to the lumber.
ing camps, where gangs of men were at
work. But now there are no numbering
camps, and the water-soaked logs are as
useless as if they were at the bottom of the
sea.
Just look at my SIS notes sticking all
over the river. Amt / wealthy man,
Drysdale, with all this lumber belonging to
me" Mr. Warner regretfully says, think
ing, no doubt, of the days when his saws
were humning and the stroke of his axes
was heard throughout the whole Manatee
region.
1t was about noon when we set out and
steamed up the broad lower part of the
Manatee river, supplied with everything
necessary for such IA expedition, including
lunch, rifle, big revolver, fishing lines,
and books to read We were not only
going up among the alligators, but were
going, if possible, to kill one and measure
him and examine him and study his moral
and mental and physical characteristics.
we steamed rapidly up past Braidentown
and Manatee, the largest towns in the
county, but still not remarkable for their
size. Manatee has within few years been
made the county seat, for in the general
shrlnkage of affairs here even the county
mas lost the greater part of its territory.
Manatee was at one time one of the largest
counties in the state, but the boundaries
have been changed within four or
nVe years, and it is now so shorn
down that it is hardly larger than the
state of Rhode Island. Pine Level was for
merry the county seat, away in the interior,
'nlrty miles from anywhere, to be reached
only by long drives over wretched sand
roads, These bad sand roads. or rather
wagon tracks through the woods, are not
peculiar to Manatee county, but are the
rule all over the state. Railroads are many
ana good, but for wagon roads Alaska can
hardly be in worse condition than the
whole of peninsular Florida. Even about
st Augustine, where the roads are best.
taey are very bad indeed outside the heart
Of the town.
Il AS we assembled the river the character of
.he shores changed. The beaches disap-
peared, and in their place were banks of
uarK colored sand, SO dark that they looked
almest like black clay. There was no clay
IN Them, of course, for there is not enough
cay In all this part of the state to make a
STrick. The character of the water changed.
1en we came to a point where the river
suduenly narrowed down from a mile wide
W d little stream not much more than a
creek, the water became almost black. We
were at the head of tidewater then, and the
water on which we floate1 came down
through the swamps and forests of the in
terlor, and was blackened by the de-
laying roots and the dark soil.
a stream of black water is
ai"ays mysterious and impressive You