It is stated that there are a few wild pigs still roaming at large in one or two of the forests in the north of the island, and certainly there are a few alligators to be found among the swamps at the mouth of the Rio Cobra River in Kingston Bay. But the prospect of finding a boar or two, and the certainty of having a shot at a savage alligator, mark the beginning and the end of the possibilities of the island so far as exciting sport is concerned. Of the two, the alligator gives more trouble and excitement to the sportsman bent on slaughter; for though the West India alligator never grows to the size of the African crocodile, he is easily large enough to do an ordinary man to death. Alligator shooting is one of the most unhealthy pleasures it is possible to imagine. The beasts choose such unhealthy resting-places that the sportsman has to run the risk of many fevers for every reptile he may chance to kill. A sluggish stream, or silent, deep lagoon, heavy with weeds and creeping plants, alive with the buzz of insects, and half hidden by a deadly steam of malarious vapour, is the sort of place dear to the hearts of alligators. There it is that they are to be found, floating, log-like, with half-closed eyes, or lying on the marshy bank with wide-open jaws, basking in the yellow glare of a fearful sun. Wise men are content to leave the beasts alone; but once we essayed the task of hunting them. We started from Kingston Harbour in an open whaler, and ran before a spanking breeze towards the murky creeks which run beyond the half-deserted Fort Augustine. It was Fort Augustine most of all that, in the days of old, gave to Jamaica its reputation as a country of death. In the time of our fathers’ fathers, the British regiments were sent from England to this same Augustine Fort, where they were destroyed in [Illustration: OUTHOUSES ON A PLANTATION, JAMAICA] companies, even battalions, by the malarious exhalations of those swamps in which to-day we went to shoot the alligator. Seen from our little boat, Kingston, just missing the deep shadow of the great mountain range which overhangs the town, lay green, and gold, and white in the pale glare of the sun. Fronting Kingston, Port Royal, a tiny strip of sand, be-palmed and dotted with houses, lay symbolic of the Caribbean coral reef. In line with Port Royal, but towards the lagoon, Fort Augustine lay enshrouded in gloom, as though brooding over the tragedy of its own sad history. And beyond the Fort, a great half-circle of the giant harbour, we saw the swamp land--Hunts Bay and the mouth of the Rio Cobra--a flat stretch of sand, yellow deepening into mud colour as it left the sea, and then breaking into scrub, and low grass, and spikey bush. Among the grass and the bush, and even through gaps of the high tree-land beyond, one caught glimpses of dull water, silent and murky and very still.