Alligator Shooting in Ceylon.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 161, 17 July 1886, Page 4

Alligator Shooting in Ceylon.

The tanks near our camp in Ceylon abounded in alligators, who came ashore to bask in the sun, all their heads turned towards the water except the watcher, whose face was turned landwards. When he gave the signal of danger, there was a general stampede into the tank. They were so numerous that we did not think them worth powder and ball, and their horny hides made ifc more trouble to kill them than they were worfch. Once when we were walking home, I saw my 'friend who was walking parallel to myself on the other side of the tank, which was about fifty yards broad, take a shot at an alligator right in iront of him ; an instant afterwards I heard the ball crash into the branches ot a tree under which I was walking ' Ifc hud been deflected at right angles f.om the reptile fa back, and I had a narrow eseaoe inconsequence. There is a method of catching alligators which I once saw practiwed in thesouthern part of the island, which affords fcooie sport to tho&e who are indifferent to the buffering it entails. You take a live puppy, and btrap him on to a raft, formed of two piece* of tough wood lashed in the form of a cros d . You sharpen nil the four points of this cross, and fasten it to a hank ot twine a yard long ; to this you attach a rope You then float your puppy who ie calling attention to his unbappv predicament by yelping loudly, on a still pool or backwater of the stream and tio the end of the rope to a tree. You then see that your revolver ia hmidy, and, with half a-dozen or more. natives, you sit under a tree and watch. In a few moments a pair of enormous jaws appear above the surtace of the water, the puppy disappears into them, bufcthey do not close with the facility with which they opened, for trie cro^ has stuck in the brute's tin oat, and the strands of the hank of twine have jjot between bis teeth* lou now lay on to the rope with a will, and slowly draw the reluctant monster to shore, while he ladies the water with his tail in impotent, rage. When you have got hunon *ho)ts you keep at, a respectful distance, and make ball-piuetice with your revolver at hi B eye. It you keep on doing this long enourrn, you finally kill him. The alligator m some of the rivers of Ceylon; are so voiacioua and numerous that the natives, who art) very tond of bathing, stake off their bothing-places. 5 rotn these strongholds you can sitely taunt an alligator, should he come and pike his nose between, the bars, and staff your tempting fUvour—oven jobbing at it with a knife." Near the mouths ot the rivers I have had places pointed out to me by the natives where they Sdid. it \\m safe to bathe, as the water was? too .■alt for the alligators and too fresh, for the shaikh JNLy impression is. had I made the experiment, that I should have found thorn bnrh there —Lawrence Oilphant, in '"Black wood."