The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1893-05-23
ALLIGATOR HUNTING.
low the Sport Is Carried on In the Flor
Ida SMamns.

ALLIGATOR HUNTING.
How the Sport Is Carried on In the Flor
ida swamps.
The one apparent purpose of all who
journey by boat in Florida is to see alli-
gators, and to keep account of the
number they have seen, as desperate
Indians in yellow-covered books tote
up the sum of the scalps they have
lifted At first the st. Johns river is
Of the broad type Of Floridian streams
"a wide expanse of fretted blue walled
in tamely with banks of low vegeta-
ton. There are only two types, that
and the tortuous narrow sort, running
like leafy lanes in cramped ribbons,
hedged close by trees. 1t is when the
st. Johns is compressed and squeezed
until it wriggles like a landed eel
that the search for gators be-
gins. had never seen a wild alligator
at large when | made the voyage, and,
to tell the truth, had seen so many
others like me, and such signs of gen.
eral slaughter of the saurians, their ba-
bies, and even their eggs, that | fam
cied | might leave Florida with the luck
of one who goes to Dakota to get a shot
at buffalo But was wrong Not
all the alligators are killed yet, though
that contamination is not far off in the
older parts of Florida. When we came
to the narrow end of the river we saw
plenty of the amphibians, and discov-
cred also that they are apparently the
only things that induce the captain to
raise his voice and to betray an inward
excitement.
Alligator on the left bankl Quick"
he shouted to all the passengers cal
ligator-big one-on the left bank,
close ahead"
Sure enough, there was the huge
lizard-like animal upon the low bank
between the water and the trees, where
he had been basking until the approach
of the boat aroused him. Already,
with snalrish motion, he was moving
toward the river, his head sweeping in
one direction, and his thick. strong tail
in the other. There was time to see
that he was ten feet long, and to won
der how the captain detected thing SO
nearly the color of the earth it rested
upon, when, with a graceful giant
wriggle, the beast slipped into the
river, and showed us only black sDout
and two bump-lixe eyes ripping the
surface of the stream.
There were some persons among the
passengers who all but raved with de-
light over the beauty of the scenery in
the narrow part of the river. Pretty
it is, but not extremely beautiful, and
the extravagant expressions of those
who find extreme beauty where others
see only tameness, or, at the utmost,
mere prettiness, inspire compassion for
all who live where nature is ILL
favored or tedious, as on the plains,
for instance. The St. Johns was here
pretty winding stream, curving
amid more or less dense growths of
oak, cypress, and palmetto. Spanish
moss hung its greenish-gray tails
upon many Of the trees, and aug
mented the strangeness of the seen
cry; for strange it would seem
to any American from beyond
the few states that border the
gulf of Mexico. 1t got It's pref
Jlu0bS lIOII JlAC 4ICSA ACW kICCA LAuO
nature was lavishing upon the trees
and the underground. So narrow was
the stream that the boat was seen to
push the water ahead of it, and to suck
great billow along behind it-a bill
low that crashed upon the low banks
and hurried the cows ashore, the buzz
yards to fight, and the turtles and alli-
gators off their resting-places. The ex-
perience suggested steamboating on
some crooked narrow route like Pearl
street in New York; but sometimes the
loops in the stream were SO sharp that
steamers making the same course APP
peared to be, and were, going In oppo-
site directions The turtles were anus
ing. Sometimes half dozen would drop
from projecting log to fall upon their
backs and scramble wildly into correct
positions Lazy and beautiful cranes
were seen at times, and the boat passed
many buzzard roosts, where the great
ugly birds were seen stalking awk-
wardly on the earth, or roosting like
turkeys on the tree limbs saw eleven
alligators, many Of them very large.
One favored me with an exhibition of
his pedestrianism by turning into the
woods instead of the water. 1t was
worth seeing He lifted his head and
six-sevenths Of his tail above the ground
upon ungainly legs that stood out from
his body almost like a spiders limbs.
Then he walked as if he had not
learned how. The customary man
with gun, and with general and
all-embracing ambition to murder some
thing. had come upon the boat to
kill an alligator. This he was FORBID
den to do, and think am right in
saying that from no steamboat running
in Florida is shooting now permitted.
The captain explained why this was
when he said: s'If passengers were al
lowed to shoot, they would be apt to
alarm or anger the people ashore, and
some of the crackers would be sure to
turn and send fusillade of buckshot
into the boat Those who have fol-
lowed my experiences in other parts of
the south will be interested in this fur
Their proof of the fact that steamboat
ing there is not unlike managing
travelling target for buckshot j ulian
Ralph, in Harper's Magazine