A FLOATING TOMB.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4910, 16 December 1876, Page 2 (Supplement)

A FLOATING TOMB.

(From the Neuj ■ York ’ Sun.)

; “I see by this morning's, paper,” said Mr. Maguffin, “ that Mrs. O’Klantikop is teamed again. , Her last husband, Major O’Klantikop, used ,to board here. He spent his winters iti Florida hunting alligators, and a more devoted sportsman .1 never saw, but he never was satisfied with the old method of shooting with a rifle. There was agreat waste in the bullets that glanced off the reptiles' backs, and frequently one would get away before he Could hit it in a vital spot. So the Major went up to Charleston one winter and bought a condemned columbiad that had been used in the siege of Fort Sumter, and had it mounted in a bond in the St. John's river, and trained to command the water adjacent to the point .round which all the alligators must come; and, having loaded with a ten-inch shell, he waited. • • ’ ’ “The very.next day there came up stream an alligator that seemed, tickled’ with something that pleased his fancy very much ; when he swung his upper jaw back to laugh, the Major thought it was a floating derrick., but when the animal came, within clear‘irange,O’Klantikop saw. that it was a monster alligator, and ho pulled the lanyard. The aim was beautiful. .The. shell struck just inside, the tip of; tho lower jaw, aud as it,rolled along toward his throat, the change in the alligator’s expression was remarkable; he shut his mouth with a clip that was .heard ton miles away, and [fairly : humped -himself -M, the bomb rolled down bis .interior, About midway of the, body, the shell exploded! The explosion could not bring back the happy alligator’s last gleeful

fancy ; but it more than restored his openness of countenance.' The Major said subsequently, however-, that while this method of destroying alligators was undoubtedly effective, it broke ’em up too fine ; and so he left the big gun to rust on the. bank of the river, and invented a new plan. “ His outfit this time was a fishing rod, a feather, and a piece of scantling about Bft. in length. Having fastened the feather to the end of the x-od, the Major would walk to the edge of the river, reach over the bank, and delicately tickle an alligator’s jaws with the feather, and when he closed his eyes and opened his mouth to enjoy the unusual titillation, the Major would quietly step in with the scantling, and Have, the upper jaw braced back before the alligator knew what was the matter. Then O’Klantikop would calmly put a bullet down his gullet, and take his prize ashore. In this way ha captured sixty-seven alligators in four months. “One day, early: this spring, the pilot of the steamer that runs up the St. John’s saw an obstruction whieh was not down on the charts, and which' had not even been visible when the boat made her previous trip. Backing his engines, the pilot was still more surprised to see the obstruction making toward him. It looked something like a spar buoy adrift, and when it came still nearer it was made out to be a piece of stout scantling sticking up through the upper jaw of a gigantic alligator. 'The pilot was amazed ; but when the story reached Jacksonville, the fate of Major O’Klantikop, who had been missing for three or. four weeks, was no longer a mystery ; everybody who was familiar with the Major’s style of hunting knew that the . strangelyplanted piece of scantling which the.pilot had seen was Major ,o’Klantikop’s tombstone, and that the Major was buried about seven feet back of it. Tbs generally accepted theory was that O’Klantikdp, made reckless by uninterrupted success, had miscalculated placing the top end of the scantling, and the rafters in the roof of the alligator’s, mouth had given way, letting the mighty jaws together, and , locking up the Major in a sarcophagus which in novelty of design and high qualities of absorption completely laid over anything in that way over constructed by the Greeks.”