LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 136, 6 November 1874, Page 3

LITERATURE.

ADVENTURES ON THE MOSQUITO. [From Temple Bar.] (Continued.) I -watched the clumsy vermin for a minute or two, without thinking of any danger, o’course, until his forepaws splashed into deep water, an’ he slid down like grease off a hot pan—noiseless and oily like that! Then, all in an instant, it kinder struck me as the location were getting warm; and durned warm it were, by thunder ! but I wasn’t scared at first. I pushed off smart from the rock, an’ made for shore, still never thinking the vermin could be after me. But that’s what he were, boys—that’s just what I found he were ! Found it out smart, too ! for he turned his nose towards me, an’ swam on as fast as he could move his scaly flappers. Then I grew scared, and I swot ! He swum, an’ I swum, an’ neither of us said a word, not having breath for no perlite attentions. But the cussed thing gained on me—gained on me fast! He slid along the surface of the water with just his nose an’ them cussed eyes in sight, making never a ripple in the pretty pool, but leaving after him two long smooth waves that parted from his snout. An’ I got mad, seeing him so close, an’ gaining always! I swum in silence, like as in a dream, an’ the alligator followed like a nightmare. But the horrid race weren’t at its worst yet, though I’d not have believed that possible. For when the cussed cretur’ was within twelve feet of me —it sank! Great heavens, boys, it sank suddintly out of sight, down under water, down under me ! Swift an’ noiseless, like a stone sinking, it went down. Then I got frantic with the scare ! Twas bad for the nerves t) watch them devilish eyes growing closer and clearer each time one threw aglance behind, but when they vanished, an’ one couldn’t even tell where the thing was—ah! that was terrible! I’ve knowed a many skeary moments, but never one like that never —never —by the Eternal! The scaly dev 1 was down there, at bottom of the pool, diving under me—swimming up through the clear water out of my sight! I threw myself up almost straight, an’ I screamed and yelled! Thunder! I was out of all my senses, I guess, an’ how it came you didn't hear me screech I cannot fancy.’ ‘ ‘ The Yankee was making such a muss with that goltired kettle,’ said I'raser. “Was that so? Wal, the Kingman here he heard me, an’ came running up like a young ‘gobbler’ to the call. Give us yer claws, Ind'an, an’ do you swear by my name —Jem Beasley’s name—for the rest of your onnat’ral existence. This ind an, sii, guessed the state of my onforfcunate affairs in just half a wink, an’ he drew his knife quite like a human, an’ put in! I guess that wildfowl weren’t no further ’n two feet from my carcase when this here Kingman shot, with scarce a bubble, beneath the surface, and came up glancing below his belly! That’s how he did the trick! Right under my body he passed, looking round smart for airthquakes an’ other vermin, an’ when he caught glimpses of that there alligator he just slit a button-hole in his vest as neat as any tailor in St Louis could lix it. Great thunder! how that cuss stunk of musk, and how he believed, an’ how he made the pool to boil like a fish-kettle ! I went on, stupid like, to shore, an’ this Ind’an he pulled me out as you might pull & child from a tampano—quicksand that is—an’ led me here. An? I tuke it I’m bound to call him a man, seeing he saved my life as such, which is

what I’d never thought to do for nary Ind’an born. Good Lord, how scared I were!’ ‘ He was scared with the danger,’ concluded the Caballero, ‘to that extent, that our lives hung upon a thread when he rejoined us. And such a state I call ‘amok,* and I think I am right in the diagnosis, Tuan. ’ ‘No doubt the man was amok. Did you go to see the carcase ? What size was it V ‘ Oh, yes, we went to look at him. He was about the common measure. Ten or eleven feet. I suppose.’ ‘ Well, and in spite of these travellers’ tales, did you ever see one much larger?’ asked the Shikari. ‘No, I never did,’ replied the Caballero, while the Tuan also shook his head in denial! ‘ I have lighted on one or two here and there which might be twelve feet long, and I would not hazard a downright opinion that some few may not grow to thirteen, or even, once in a river, to fourteen feet. But I’ll give my word, having travelled freely over the continent, that no American alligators grew beyond that size. ’ ‘And I’ll answer for the farther East,’ observed the Tuan. ‘ And I for the Indian peninsula,’ said the Shikari. ‘lf any man told me he’d seen one of those leviathans eighteen to twenty-five feet 1 mg that one reads of in books, I’d give him sixpence to buy a Testament.’ ‘ The size of such reptiles is wonderfully deceiving,’ resumed the Caballero. ‘My first voyage I myself saw alligators of twenty feet; ay, and I’d almost have allowed twentyfive to some of them; but one gains by experience in such matters as in others. I say now, and I speak with fair knowledge, there are none in any river I have sailed on over fourteen feet, and very few over ten feet. As to crocodiles, I give no opinion. On the Nile I never saw them even so big as that; but there are some waters in India where they are said to grow as long as eternity and broad as the prairie. I don’t deny it, but I should much like to see some of those monsters withont a spyglass. ‘ I remember that night asking Fraser, who h d travelled very extensively, whether he had seen a country where the alligators were a serious danger, and he answered drily: ‘ ‘ I never saw the country yet where there was much of fun to be got out of them; not what I should call real, high-class joking. Their gifts done lie that way, owing to the onkindness of Natur, which has so fixed their jaws they couldn’t larf downright hearty not if they tried. I’ve seed a many animals, most animals, larf free enough, but alligators don’t seem to have no sense of humour. But, excepting a joke, they’ll catch most things, human, nigger, or otherwise. I’ve knowed one of ’em to swallow a rifle, a boat-stretcher, half a man’s body, an’ a sack of meal. Maybe the cretur’ saw that reparst in the light of a joke, but I guess it must have disagreed with him; bound to—specially the rifle barrel. But in a general way it ain’t worth while to scare one’s nerves about alligators. They’re harmless enough commonly. Of course, like all other wild beasts, when they’ve once caught the vicious habit of man-eating, they keep to it, and such are rightdown dangerous. But it’s only very old bulls who care for that luxury, an’ they don’t enjoy it long, for a whole country-side musters to the hunt when a man-eater is discovered. Commonly, the natives let ’em alone, for they breed too fast to be quite destroyed. An’ most every living thing makes war upon the young an’ eggs, birds an’ fish, and beasts, an’ men an’ their own relatives, which is cruellest of all, ain’t it ? The eggs ain’t such bad eating either when one’s hungry; a little strong, maybe, but scarce more nasty than new-laid hen’s eggs in the States. 5 ’ ‘ What was the other occasion on which you saw a man amok with fear ?’ asked the sailor. ‘ The other case was in a very different scene, ’ resumed the Caballero. ‘lt was on the Gold Mountains of Chontales. The day I should not be likely to forget, though it had not been signalised by this event, for then and there I first saw a hurricane. The scenery of that table-land is bleak and sad and lonely, as in all auriferous regions. Of all the impressions which wide travel has left upon my mind, none is so strong and enduring, none dwells so persistently in my fancy, as the recollection of that dreary land. Coming from the brilliant, noisy plain, glowing with flowers, shaded with grand forests, and resonant with life, the silence and solitude and desolation of Chontales must burden the most indifferent soul. Hill succeeds to barren hill, in an endless roll; dead volcanoes, like great bowls turned over, little lakes and long smooth slopes, fill the space between the ranges. No sign of life, no shade of trees, no mark of cultivation. No movement of bird or beast, save a few wild ducks swimming on the tarns, and half-a-dozen snipe scudding along the banks. The streams flow between steep barrancas, choked with bamboos and cotton wood, or foam downwards, unseen, beneath broad coarse leaves of water plants. The scarcemarked track winds in and out through the lower land, over tedious ‘jicarales,’ long stretches of wet ground trampled to mud by the numberless cattle, trying to the courage of the mule and the patience of the rider. Wild calabash trees, low and formal-looking, stretch their leaves, growing by fours, in a perfect cross, before the path; the ground beneath is covered with fallen globes, like large green oranges, and the boughs are bright with the purple and crimson tufts of Brim i'll era. Here and there is a tangled thicket growing upon an ancient tomb, but the vegetation is scanty and monotonous. No flowers are there, save a tiny white star of which I know not the name; nothing but fine grass, burnt to a grey and sombre tint by the tropical blaze. But at no time of the year is sunshine an absolute certainty here, as in the lower plains ; on this day of which I speak, we had not enjoyed one ray for longer than a weak. But the heat was not less ; a close and stifling atmosphere shrouded all the land, and from each marshy spot—crowned though it were with plumy bamboos and spangled over with white lilies—drew a foul and poisonous miasma. So heavy was the day of which I speak ; overhead, from zenith to the sky-line, hung dim and woolly clouds ; the dull air quivered wit i heat; mourn ain and volcano and savannah lay still and grey as a landscape of the dead. All through the land fevers were rife in man, and morina in cattle. At the little hacienda I had that morning left, almost every soul had his or her head tied up, according to the national prescription, in a handkerchief. True is that Italian proverb which says, * Dove non va il sole, va il medico. ’ To bo continued.