Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 November 1880 — ADVENTURES IN FLORIDA. [ARTICLE]

ADVENTURES IN FLORIDA.

I first went to Flopda in the winter of 1873. Like <ll persona in search of health, I sailed up the BL John’s river. After boholding a palmetto in all its glory, I was eager to see an alligator in all ita pristine purity. For two hundred and thirty miles I kept a bright lookout along the banks of the BL John’s. It waa early in January, and the weather was chilly. I landed in Enterprise, on Lake Monroe, without seeing a saurian. They were in winter quarters, bidden in the mud at the bottom of the river. If the negroes are to be believed, each reptile has swallowed a lightwood knot by way of ballast, and would not reappear until the weather became warm. I saw the first alligator a week after my arrival in Enterprise. I sat in the stern of a blue boat trolling for southern basa. July Jenkins, a venerable Ethiopian, was pulling the oars. It was a day of sunshine. We were nearing themouth of Woodruff creek, when July stopped rowing and eagerly murmured, “Dah’s a gatah!” I looked up a small bayou and saw a long, black object stretched among the reeds and lily pads, perfectly motionless. He looked as if he wore a coat of mail “He’s dead, July,” I said. “Oh, no, sah,’ was the reply. “He’m only asleep, I reckon.” “Back up the boat,” I said. “I want to look at him.” z

The boat was noiselessly backed up the bayou. The monster gave no sign of life. He was fully eleven feet long. I had taken in my spinner, and was handling my rod like a horse-whip. “ ’Fore de Lord, don’t be brash,” murmured July, “dah’s a heap o’ compredunctiou in a gata.” I could not believe that the reptile waa alive. If he were breathing, his flanks ought to show the motion of a bellows. When within six feet I prodded him under a fore leg with the lance wood tip. All doubt vanished. The reptile jumped as though a torpedo had exploded beneath him. He took in the situation in a second. Reeds and lilypads flew in the air, and he landed slap against the gun-wales, throwing me partly overboard, and covering the frightened negro with mud. The water was shallow, and as the monster slid under the keel, the boat was careened, the freedman’s hat went overboard, and an oar was thrown ten feet away by a wipe of the serrated tail. I clambered back into the boat, and saw a curved line of bubbles marking the reptile’s course • from the bayou into the lake. I had seen ~-n alligator in all its pristine uurity. “I fcnowed dat gatah was asleep, sah,” saiA July in a tone of reproach, as he fished for his hat and broke for the stray oar. We resumed our fishing, but the old gentleman pointed out no more alligators, although he undoubtedly saw half a dozen. On our return to Enterprise, CapL Tom Reeves heard of the adventure, and made inquiries as to location and position. A week afterward he was pulled up to the dock, with the cayman trailing at the stern of his boaL

Within a fortnight I was strolling along a fringe of lilypads, near the month of the Wekiva, and saw a six-footer plastered against the opposite bank of the river in profund slumber. Shoving a cartridge into a Remington rifle, I got out of the boat, braced myself against a live oak, took deliberate aim at the reptile’s neck and fired. A cloud of snowy herons arose from a marsh behind me, but the alligator did hot stir. “Dat ah gatah’s a good sleepah, sab,” said July. “Dat ah shot done gone clean ober him, I reckon.” Again I steadied myself against the live oak, and a second report rang over the water. I heard a crashing in the canes behind me, and saw a huge saurian rushing ’’or the lilypads like a train of coal cars. He had probably been watching me from the time I landed, and had been startled by the second crack of the rifle. As he went into the river a small tidal wave rolled over the lilypads, and a school of large baas which had been hiding in the shady recesses beneath them darted to and fro in terror. The six-footer on the opposite bank of the river remained as quiescent as iron. After three additional shots we crossed the river and held a post mortem. Three bullets had entered the reptile's body, and two had glanced from the plates of mail. The first bullet had

apparently broken the vertebra just over the shoulders and had killed him outright without a spasm. We heaved him into the boat and returned to Enterprise in triumph. A crowd of darkies and pilgrim a gathered around. Earnest Mann, of Bayonne, N. J heard the story with much interest. “Why"’ said he, at its conclusion, “that’s the same alligator that I killed two days ago. If you look under the left fore-leg, you'll find he mark of an explosive bullet.” A month later I visited Lake Jesup with Judge Emmons, of Jacksonville. The Judge was a wonderful marksman, as frill of fun aa a magpie; but he was getting old and his eyeright was failing. One day we killed a monster on the edge of a marshy canebrake. He had splendid teeth, and the Judge wanted to secure them as mementoes. The painter of the boat was tied to the reptile’s leg, and we towed him across an arm of the -lake to solid ground. A small ax was borrowed from the house of a “cracker” near by, and we concluded to decapitate the prize, boil the head and remove the teeth. The body was so large that we could not draw it upon the shore. A stake was cut and pointed and driven through the jaws of the reptile, pinning him into the mud. The water was probably two feet deep. The Judge drew out a sheath-knife, and was about to make an incision, when he was cautioned by a barefooted negro, who stood on the ben r weti*hlug the operation with curious eyes. , "Better git shut o’ dat ah gwrih, » said he, “twill he done gone dead." “Oh. good Lord!’’ exclauhed the Judge; “he’s been dead an hour. If he was alive ““ «••• ■. “Ho ntah am dead till de sun amgona mond rthejtad scries beneath the akin* I Btood near monrters the< i niT

was dangerous to fool with a dead sUigafw was a great drouth, and the savannas and swamps were dry. Scores of alligators par i»y, two well-known guides, rode past the encampment. They were looking for sour yards from camp they reined in their horses on a burnt savanna, and began to shout Snatching a double-barreled gun, I ran oat on the savanna. Their homes were prancing around an laorenni bull alligator, who bad crawled out of the dry •tn&qt and who was haadnl for the Hillsborough river. He was confused by the shouts of the guidee and the aaaocing of their horses, and I approached him unseen Stealing behind hint I ran a long palmetto splinter ia Ma eye. He turned lumberinaly over the blackened stubble, and the guides struck at him with cow hides. Dnven te warineaa, he eroudied dose the ground, puffed out Ma throat, opened Ma caverneua mouth, and made a nohe like the rushing of a wind. ▲ moment afterward I discharged • load of buckahot into each of. The monster shuddered and str it eh it himtelf in the agonies of death. Capt Sama dismounted and hurried hie ax in the reptile’s taiL The vertebra wae severed, and he was no loagsr dangeroas, although there was stiU life in the taiL It moved slowly. and uneasily, like the tail of a wounded snake, and the guidee declared that it would not die until the setting of the sun. At intervals thecayman roared like a Central Park lion. Toward night I went to the swamp to mark the roosts of wild turkeys. The day was oppreeaively hoL I was returning toward eamp long after dark, when I found myself upon the burnt savanna. To my surprise the whole savanna seemed alive and moving. Nearly worn out with exhaustion, I fancied that my head was reeling, a sure sign of malarial fever. The phenomenon was quickly explained. A thousand buzzards were in the camp *hear the great alligator, waiting the light of day to secure their prey. A year afterward I found the skeleton of this saurian, and knocked out its teeth. The savanna was then covered with water a foot deep. in the following winter I wae shooting plumed herons on the great savannas at the head of Indian . river. My guide was the well-known Judge Connor, once a Methodist clergyman. One morning while riding over the vast prairie on horseback, we met an alligator longer than the moral law. “Shoot him,” said the Judge. . “Oh, no,” I replied: “I don’t want to Hl him. The report of the gun will scare every heron within a mile, and I shall get no plume.” “But, Lord blast my buttons,” said the Judge, “he eats my hogs and young calves Mi the range. Shoot him.” “No,” I answered, “I have cotne twenty miles for plumes, and I don’t intend to go back without them.”

“Well,” Conner, “you’re the flrot Yankee I ever saw who won’t pull a |rigger on a ’gator.” “I’ll take a look at him anyhow,” I said, as I hitched my horse to a palmetto mid* way between two creeks. The gram was high and rank. As I walked toward the reptile he raised himself on his four legs, opened his jaws, pnflbd out his throat like a bullfrog, aud made a itoise like the humming of a buzz-saw. I stopped ten feet away and stamped and shouted.* The Judge sat upon his horse watching the proceedings. The alligator did not quail. On the contrary, he squailed close to the gronr.il, and began to creep toward ineJas a cat m ould creep toward a mouse. Walking back to the palmetto, I gathered five or six of its huge dried firns, held them toward my body, struck a match and set them ablaze. The ugly monster watched me like a dragon. I held the fans down hiding the blaze, and marched toward him. His huge mouth was open, and looked like a newly bricked tunnel. Within reach, I suddenly raised the fans and thrust the blazing mass in his throaL He closed his ponderous jaws, tufned pale, and ran. Lighting a fresh fan, I ran around him, setting the coarse, dry grass of the savanna on fire. He was encircled with flames. He raised his body gazed at the fire with bloodshot eyes, and then shuffled himself into the wet sand, and calmly awaited the resulL There was a fair breeze from the northeast. In three minutes the fire had swept over him, burying him in the blackened grass. He remained as he had planted himself. I went through the smoke and reached him with the barrels of the gun, but he did not move. *He seemed to doze; possibly he had fainted. I remounted the horse, and we rode off. A hundred yards away we looked back. Th# monster had recovered, and was traveling leisurely over the smoking savanna toward a little stream that pours into the head of Indian river.

Two years before this I had visited Lake Worth, twelve miles below Jupiter light. At that time Charles Moore, a jolly beachcomber, was the only person living on the shore of the lake. We went through an arm of the everglades, and deposited our camp equipage and provisions on the hard sand at the northeast end qf the lake. The sand was fringed with huge rushes. We had hauled our boat over the strip of sand separating the waters of the lake from the everglades, intending to run down to Moore’s cabin before sundown. The wind, however, died away, and We concluded to camp for the night. We found a cleared spot in the scrub a hundred feet back from the shore. Ridge poles and crotched posts indicated that It was a favorite camping ground for the Seminoles. On returning to the beach I found a twelve foot alligator crawling toward our bag of pork. A score of companions were anchored off the rushes, and one or two were following in his wake. On hearing my footsteps the old fellow turned and faced me. Our guns lay on a chest within three feet of him and so we were cut off from our base of supplies. Moore and Hammond, a Pennsylvanian, who had pre-empted land on the lake, joined me. We shouted and heaved ridgepoles at the savage scoundrel, but it was no go. He held the pass, and his companions were moving on to the pork. Something must be done, or we would be left without provisions. My eyes fell on a bed of dried palmettoes that had been used by the Indians. To gather and set them ablaze, was the work of a few seconds. With the flaming miss we advanced on the great lizards. In the light of the blaze they retreated to the lake. We suspended the bag of pork from a tree that hungover the bank, and in the morning the sand looked as though a rebel brigade had been throwing up trenches.

The Inlet connecting the lake with the ocean had been closed by a bank of sand thrown up in an easterly hurricane. On this bank I encamped for a week. Schools of spotted baas, snappers, groupers, croakers, and white drum had been shut in the lake by the closing of the inlet At high tide the water from the ocean percolated through the sand, and the fiehro swarmed to the bay to get a taste of the fresh salt water. While fishing here I discovered a huge alligator regarding my movements with apparent interest Ashe seemed civil and not evily disposed, I threw him in a twenty pound bass, and he ate it with a relish. For six days he remained near me, reaping a harvest He at last became bo tamTtbrihe stationed himself thirty feet away, and received his fish with evident pleasure. Nor did he act the hog, or display any ingratitude. He took only the fish that were thrown to him. At one time a vicious bluefish snapped the in a boat and secured it. When I returned the old alligator was at Ms station, arris Hie of droire fish that I hadreeervedfor i - j I .5*In the struggle Of life the hero anH th. I