As usual, Corker was busy describing his phenomenal capacity for conquering the beasts of the field, and would permit no silent revelry in the beauty and joy of the scene. Sitting in the bows of the boat, playing cup and ball with a tumbler and its contents, he gave us innumerable hints as to the best way of stalking alligators, illustrating the success of his methods with several modest stories of what he had achieved at the very spot to which we were bound. I had shot "crocs" myself on the Indian Sunderbunds, but I offered no supplementary yarns, for I knew that Corker could easily cap anything I might say. However, by the time we had imbibed about as much advice as we could comfortably hold without confusion, we rounded the western point of the bay and found ourselves at the estuary of the Rio Cobre. Up this river, far away from the coast, there are some of the fairest spots on God's earth; but at its mouth it is an inferno well worthy of its description as "Jamaica's death-hole." A wide stretch of steaming swamp, intersected with inky streams of stinking water, a breeding-place for the fever-propagating mosquito and a home for all the loathsome creeping things of the island, it is almost as bad as some of the pestilential swamps of the West African coast, and seen in its beautiful setting of blue seas and golden beach dotted with graceful green palms, it looks even worse. But since it held our quarry we were prepared to disregard its hygienic and scenic shortcomings, so we ran our craft on to a bank inshore, and, clambering out, waded through the warm sea to the rotting vegetation and repulsive mud and slime of the delta. Fixing our rendezvous on a fairly dry spot close to our landing-place, we arranged our plan of action. At this juncture Corker very generously offered to stay behind to see that the boat and the "milk" came to no harm, but, of course, none of us would hear of such a sacrifice. Finally we decided to divide forces. Hunter and Madox, the two West India Regiment men, were to go together, accompanied by one of the black "boys," an accomplished 'gator tracker; whilst Corker and I joined guns, the other "boy" coming with us to flay anything we might get. Separating, in accordance with this plan, Corker and I squelched off through the fœtid slime toward the upper end of the delta. As we slushed along we carefully scanned the banks of dried mud, intersecting the numerous lagoons, for "sign," listening keenly the while for snapping jaws and splashing bodies. We had to be very much on the _qui vive_, for at any moment, in stepping round the low bushes or wading waist-deep through the intersecting streams, we might have trodden on a sleeping saurian, with unpleasant results, for, despite an unwieldy-looking body, the 'gator is capable of very swift movement, and, what is more, both ends of him are dangerous--with his jaws he may lop off a leg; with his tail he may break one's back.