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The piraña of course could not penetrate the hide of the alligator, but entering by the bullet-hole it had turned to one side and partially buried itself in the flesh. I have seen men bearing very ugly scars, the results of wounds inflicted by the piraña while they were bathing.
The very first thing they saw upon entering it was an enormous alligator, fully eighteen feet long, sound asleep on a mud-bank. "Och! put ashore, ye Naygur," cried Barney, seizing his pistol and rising up in the bow of the canoe. The old man complied quickly, for his spirit was high and easily roused.
Besides, they were not simply shoved out of the way; the most of the scoopful were scooped aboard; they emptied them into the hold; and when they had got a trip, they took them to Orleans to the Government works. 'What for? 'Why, to make soldier-shoes out of their hides. All the Government shoes are made of alligator hide. It makes the best shoes in the world.
So numerous are they, that Bates observes "it is scarcely exaggeration to say that the waters of the Solimoens are as well stocked with alligators in the dry season, as a ditch in England is in summer with tadpoles." Like the turtle, the large alligator has its annual migrations.
It is necessary to bear this in mind to realise what followed. I had not gone many yards along this track, when I was horrified to see, right in front of me, an enormous alligator! This great reptile was shuffling along down the path towards me, evidently making for the water, and it not only blocked my advance, but also necessitated my immediate retreat.
The jaguar being well aware of its inferiority to the saurian in the proper element of the latter, when it has to cross a river it sets up a tremendous howl on the bank previous to entering the water, in the hope of scaring the alligator to a distance.
"It would look very hopeful, Louis, if the Fatimé were only doing her best to overhaul us in a chase; but she is like an alligator sunning himself on the water, she don't move a muscle," said the captain. "Well, if we have to go back, we shall still have the chance of a race before us," suggested Louis. "I hope so," added Scott. "Only hope so?" queried Louis.
Now and then a snag would be struck, and on such occasions Ruth would start nervously, and cry out: "Alligators!" "Oh, please stop!" begged Alice, after two or three of these scares. "I don't believe there's an alligator within ten miles of us." "Of course not," agreed Paul. All this while Russ was getting films of the boat containing the two moving picture girls. He was following in another boat.
Well, they both hopped as fast as they could, but on account of the baskets of groceries which they had they couldn’t hop as fast as usual. The alligator saw this, and after them he crawled, and several times he nearly had them by their tails. Oh, no, excuse me, if you please, frogs don’t have tails. I was thinking of tadpoles.
Rivers that overran their banks, fever-stricken lowlands where gaunt faces peered out from moldering cabins, bottomless swamps where the mud oozed greasily and where the alligator could be seen slowly moving his repulsive form all this stretched on for hundreds of miles to horrify and sicken the emigrants who came toiling on foot or struggling upon emaciated horses.
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