My two Kaffirs returning with me one day to the Umganie Drift, we found the tide up, and the water consequently too deep to get across: it was about five feet in the deepest part. _This_ would not have prevented us from wading, as there was not much current running, and no sea on; but as great numbers of hungry sharks were on one side, and alligators on the other, we did not like to venture, the breadth being nearly two hundred yards. The alligator is a very unpleasant customer if you are in the water. An accident happened at the Drift, about two miles from the mouth of the Umganie, to an Englishman, a very worthy settler. He lived in a little cottage across the river, and was returning one evening with a supply of fresh meat, which he carried with his clothes over his head: the water was about breast-high. Suddenly, when about the middle of the river, he was seized round the waist by the jaws of an alligator. He dropped his meat, and caught hold of the animal's head, calling at the same time to a Kaffir who was near. It was either the shout or the seizing that frightened the creature, for it let go its hold, and the poor man reached the opposite side of the river, where he fainted. The wounds he had received were very severe; he was three months before he could move about, and never again seemed the same man that he was before this mangling. I often saw an old Kaffir, near the Umganie, who had nearly the whole fleshy part of the thigh torn off by an alligator as he was one day crossing the river. My days and evenings of patient watching were not rewarded by a shot at this rapacious brute. The alligator often devours its prey as it comes to drink. Slowly approaching some unsuspecting animal, it seizes it by the nose, and drags it under water; the weight of the alligator prevents the animal from raising its head; it is in consequence soon suffocated, and is dragged to a convenient retired place until required, or sufficiently high to suit the Epicurean taste of this scaly monster.