A TRAVELLER’S TALES.

Kumara Times, Issue 1126, 8 May 1880, Page 4

A TRAVELLER’S TALES.

[ONOE A WEEK.] THE EMPTY AIIITATOR. Here is an ancedote for which 1 cannot vouch, and which indeed it is extremely difficult to credit. However, it was told me by some “grave and reverend seignors”—South Indian Missionaries of the Church of England—one of whom I understood to vouch for the correctness of the story. The story in question relates to the extraordinary pertinacity with which alligators cling to life. If they have not nine lives, like a cat, it is claimed for them that, for a considerable time at least, they can exist under the most abnormal circumstances. The ancedote, as I heard it, and as far as 1 can remember, run as follows :—A missionary and a few friends had occasion to travel along the great Travancore backwater, which extends, parallel to the sea, along the sonthmost portion of the Malabar Coast of India, nearly down to Cape Comorin. One day the party happened to be staying at the house of a friend, who lived not far from the bank of the backwater. Suddenly a dozen natives rushed into the bouse, wailing and beating their breasts. An alligator had carried of a baby, and was quietly munching his food on the banks. I may mention that the Travancore backwater is famous for three things —its innumerable palms, its countless fire flies, and its multitudes of alligators The party and their host jumped up, and sallied out in a body with their guns. In five minutes they came to the fatal spot. There lay the hideous brute, basking in the sun, with its tail in the water, and its body half embeded in the mud, audibly ctunching the skull and bones of its victim. Mr S—-raised his rifle—a crack—the monster gave a slight shudder as the bullet crushed through its brain ; and the next minute the party dragged the alligator further up the bank finding him apparently stone dead. After this, he was hauled by the natives with ropes to the garden attached to the house, at which the party was staying. The remains of the half-devoured infant were were buried; but as most of the child’s limbs were undoubtedly within the alligator, it was summarily disembowelled, and I fear the heart of the cannibal received as decent interment as the fragmentary members of the poor babe’s body. After ail this had been duly and solemnly performed, Mr S , the missionary, thought that he would have the alligator dried and preserved for the Madras Museum, as it was a fine fnllgrowu animal, quite 13ft long. So it was laid out ou its internal parts being very cleanly scraped away, and quantities of arsenical soap rubbed in, where, before the heart, lungs, liver, intestines, &c., had been located, while huge stones-were placed on the aides of the carcase to keep it open. By this time it was evening, and the party sat down to a merry dinner. Then came the cigars, and then bed. Somehow Mr g.i. , could iiot sleep. Frightful night mares haunted ffiim. He dreamt that he was a baby, and that, an alligator ornnohed his tibia! bone! Then he fancied be was an alligator, and that fiends were rubbing his inside with arsenical soap! After a few hours of feverish sleep, he rose, lit a cheroot, and determined to take a walk oat in the garden. It was 3 a.m. There was a bright moonlight. Mr S thought he would go and have just one peep at the dead alligator. |He went—what! — could he believe his eyes 1 There was the alligator slowly walking off, with a waddling motion, and rolling his head about as if in pain, towards the back water! S—— rushed back and awoke his friends. They simply laughed in his face, and told him he must have been dreaming. But the morning brought its full revelation. The alligator was gone, and the tracks it had made to the bank of the backwater were plainly discernable! They never saw the creature again; but the gentleman who lived by the backwater wrote to Mr S some three months afterwards, informing him that some fishermen had been chased by a hungry alligator, with which they had a terific tussle. At lentgh they overcome the brute, and killed it by cutting off its head. But the peculiar part of the business was that, after they killed the alligator in this manner, they found that it had got no inside !

THE GREAT INDIAN 'WATER TRICK . Reputedly, the beat water trick which is performed in idia, is one which I have seen several times in different parts of the great continent. A moderate sized, but deep, tank is chosen. You are allowed to bind a man tightly and securely with a long rope, to affix a heavy stone to his feet, and to throw him into the centre of the tank. Half a minute, and more, of intense suspense ensues, when the same man who was bound and thrown in, rises to the sur ace without a vestige of cord about his person. The trick looks marvellous enough at first sight, but the explanation is easy. At the moment of the descent of the man who has been tied and weighted, another man, a very expert diver, quietly plunges into the tank from a part distant from uninitiated spectators. He carries with him a sharp knife, with which he severs the cords, and releases his comrade from the stone attached to his feet. He then returns noiselessly and swiftly to the spot from which came, whilst the recently bound man rises up to the surface, attracting all eyes to him. The trick, however, is a very difficult one, because it has to be performed in such a short space of time. Sometimes the man who has been bound rises exhausted to the surface with half of the ropes with which he was tied still fastened round his person. In such a

case the trick, of course is to some extent a failure. TIGERS IN THE WATER. A well-known story—l think it has appeared in print—is told of some sailors in a boat, seeing a black object in the water, harpooned it, when it turned out to be a tiger, which subsequently nearly succeeded in getting at them and swamping their boat. I have been informed of a tragical incident somewhat similar to this: —A small cutter was cruising in 187 L along one of the narrow creeks in Jrva. It was a beautiful moonlit night. The sailors had a pet goat on board, which for some cause or other, kept up that night an incessant bleating. Two dark objects were seen by the watch suddenly to leave the contiguous land and make for the ship. The sailor went to the side to see what the creatures were, but only in time to raise an alarm, for ahuge tigress clambered up the side of the cutter, sprang upon him, and broke his neck with a blow. The helmsman, seeing this, left his post, and ran up the rigging, from thence he kept shouting out a warning to the captain and crew, who were below in their cabins. These, luckily, thus had a conception of the character of the danger awaiting them, and, arming themselves, stealthily proceeded to the deck. Here they found the tiger and tigress disposing of the pet goat, and wantonly clawing tht body of the dead sailor. After many shots were fired, the tiger was killed, and the tigress wounded ; the latter, however, escaped to shore. And now they narrowly escaped another danger, for, the helmsman having been onliged to leave his post, the cutter running straight for land, not distant—on the side being rapidly neared—a couple of hundred yards. However, the little craft was taken in hand just in time.