230

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI.

' Bo you see that little bowlder sticking out of the water yonder?
well, when I first came on the river, that was a solid ridge of rock,
over sixty feet high and two miles long. All washed away but that*
[This with a sigh.]

I had a mighty impulse to destroy him. but it seemed to me that
killing, in any ordinary way, would be too good for him.

Once, when an odd-looking craft, with a vast coal-scuttle slanting
aloft on the end of a beam, was steaming by in the distance, he indif-
ferently drew attention to it, as one might to an object grown weari-
some through famili-
arity, and observed
that it was an * alli-
gator boat.7

c An alligator boat ?
What's it for 1'

e To dredge out alli-
gators with.'

* Are they so thick
as to be troublesome $'

* Well, not now, be-
cause the Government
keeps them down. But
they used to be. Not
everywhere; but in
favourite places, here
and there, where the
river is wide and shoal

—like Plum Point, and Stack Island, and so on—places they call
alligator beds.'

'Did they actually impede navigation i '

* Years ago, yes, in very low water; there was hardly a trip, then,
i&at we didn't get aground on alligators.'

It seemed to me that I should certainly have to get out my toma-
hawk. However, I restrained myself and said—

* It must have been dreadful*

* Yes, it was one of the main difficulties about piloting. It was
so bard to tell anytliing about the water; the damned things shiffo

ALLJGATOB