Four Months in a Sneak-Box: A Boat Voyage of 2600 Miles Down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and Along the Gulf of MexicoBishop, Nathaniel H. (Nathaniel Holmes)
General
Four Months in a Sneak-Box: A Boat Voyage of 2600 Miles Down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and Along the Gulf of Mexico
Bishop, Nathaniel H. (Nathaniel Holmes)
Boats and boating; Mississippi River -- Description and travel; Ohio River -- Description and travel
"We waded in, and approached him as he lay upon a bed of green aquatic
plants with his head towards us. It was resting on the mud, and one of
the party was about to place his foot upon it, when a lively look in
the animal's eyes deterred him. Stooping down, he picked up a floating
branch, and lightly threw it in the reptile's face. The result was
somewhat surprising. The huge jaws opened instantly, and the
formidable tail came round, sweeping the branch into his mouth, where
it was crushed and ground to atoms by the rows of sharp teeth. His
eyes flashed fire, and he rapidly glided forward. Never did magician
of Arabian tale conjure a fiercer-looking demon by wave of his wand
than had been raised to life by the motion of a branch. For a moment
we were too astonished to move.
"The huge monster seemed bent on revenge, and in another instant would
be upon us. We then saw our danger, and quicker than a flash of light,
thought and action came. The next moment the gigantic saurian was made
to struggle on his back with a bullet in his brain. It had entered his
right eye, and had been aimed so nicely as not to cut the lids.
"To make sure of him this time, we severed his jugular vein. While
performing this not very delicate operation, he thrust out two
singular-looking glands from slits in his throat. They were round,
resembling a sea-urchin, being covered with minute projections, and
were about the size of a nutmeg, giving out a strong, musky odor. We
then took his dimensions, and found he was over ten feet in length,
while his body was larger round than a flour-barrel. The immense jaws
were three feet long, and when stretched open would readily take in
the body of a man. They were armed with rows of sharp, white teeth.
The tusks of the lower one, when it was closed, projected out through
two holes in the upper, which fact proved to us that it was not a
common alligator, but a true crocodile (C. acutus)."
If Mr. Maynard had been at that time aware of the value of the prize
he had captured, the market-price of which was some four or five
hundred dollars, he would not have abandoned his crocodile. He
afterwards sent for its head, but could not obtain it. This reptile
will probably be found more numerous about the headwaters of the Miami
River than further north. It sometimes attains a length of seventeen
feet. Since Mr. Maynard shot his crocodile, others from the north have
searched for the C. acutus, and one naturalist from Rochester, New
York, captured a specimen, and attempted to make a new species of it
by giving it the specific name of FLORIDANAS, in place of the older
one of C. acutus.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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