A FRIGHTFUL EXPERIENCE IN AN INDIAN SWAMP.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 221, 24 September 1887, Page 3

A FRIGHTFUL EXPERIENCE IN AN INDIAN SWAMP.

Ix making our surveys we were often greatly annoyed and impeded by the alligators, m ith which the river named is alive from bource to mouth. In what are known on the &ur\ey maps as the third and fourth mouths of the Ganges theso reptiles several time? attacked our boats in broad daylight, and we lived in constant dread of them. The^e mouths, being to the east of Calcutta, descended to the sea through hundreds o miles of Hat land, which is mostly swamp, and the .-ituation is a favourable one for reptile life. One rainy afternoon, while the survey paitv were kept aboaul the steamer, one of our natues put oil" in his canoe to lish. He cast anchor not 300 yards from us, and had been fishing only about ten minutes when we noticed an alligator rise to the surface behind him. Two or three of the nathea called out to him, but he either did not hear or did not care. The reptile Hank out of sight, was gone about fifteen secondhand then rose up, reared out of the water with head and forefeet in the canoe, ! and the next instant it was upset. The } nathe utteicd a direful wail as he realised 1 hi<- Lite, and there was such a rush of J alligators to the spot that he could hardly I has r e made a mouthful apiece for them. On another occasion, not more than two weeks later, we were using a native in the same canoe to mark the channel. There were six of us in one of the large boats, while he was alone in the canoe. He had run oil with ISO feet of line, and was holding the canoe to the .swampy bank with one hand and the line with the other, when a saurian whoso presence was not in the Ica^c suspected, rose under the canoe, upiet it in a wink, and the man was seized before he had uttered a single cry. He l.mst have had the survey line wound aiound his hand, for it at once began to run oii the reel, and in this way we followed the crocodile into a lagoon, but could not get afc him to 3ecuro revenge. I have spoken of these reptiles as crocodiles and alligators. It is a distinction without a dilierence. There may be crocodiles which diiFer from alligators, but the ciocorliles of India and the alligators of Ameiica are as alike as two peas. It was six or seven weeks after the last .seizure that a party of six of us -two whites and four blacks — started off in one of the boats to investigate or explore a lagoon. This lagoon seemed to be the mouth of a river or another branch of the Ganges, but after following it about nine miles through a flat, marshy country, we discovered its true nature. Our steamer lay about a mile below this lagoon, and on the same side of the river, and at that time her fires had been drawn to overhaul her boiler. We left the steamer shortly after noon, and it was almost sundown when we came back down the lagoon to a small Hand at its mouth. As wo were approaching the island my comrade caught sight of a very large bird in the reeds and grass, and knocked it over with a charge from his shotgun. We should not have stopped but to get the bird. It was a prize indeed, being a specimen entirely new to all of us, although one of the natives said ho had heard of such a species of birds living fur up the river. It was as laree a? a turkey, and I presume it bled a great deal. We had scarcely shoved aAvay from the island before alligators began to rise to the surface around us, and they were so bold that my comrade became alarmed, and did the worst thing possible under the ciicumstances. He threw the bird overboard, and it wasn't sixty seconds afterward before we had to pull ashore on the island to save ourselves. Ido not believe I ex- j aggerate in the least when I say that there were 250 of the saurians splashing about us when we landed. Indeed, the two of us were using our firearms to keep 'em oiY ! while the natives pulled for the shore. We had two double-barrelled shotguns, | but not over a dozen charges of ammuni- ! tion, and we used half of these before the boat landed. The Hand was a bit of spongy land, not over tifty feet across, with three or four small trees growing in the centre. I had never seen the natives so badly rattled. The moment the boat touched the ground they sprang ashore and ran to the centre of the island, and, in their ha^te to abandon the craft, two of the oars were allowed to 'go overboard and float away. It seemed for a moment as if the reptiles meant to ci-awl right over us, but the flash of the guns and the death of three or four of them produced something of a scare, and after a bit they drew away from the boat. I stood up on a thwart and looked around in the twilight, and it seemed to me that tho water all around the little island was alivo with our enemies. They swam here and there, they turned and twisted and lashed the water, and the odour from their bodies and tho mud soon became almost unbearable. It was plain enough that we could not stop long on that bit of land, and we called

fco the natives to return to the boat and be off. The poor wretches had no courage left, and they began to cry and whimper like children. We threatened to turn our guns on them if they did not obey orders, and then they came running to the boat. The oars which had gone overboard had ! floated away and could not be recovered, and when they discovered this the moßt ! intelligent of them said : " You do not understand these reptiles. They aro so tierce and hungry, and are so bold by night, that they will even climb into the boat. Any one can upset us by a , blow of his tail." " What would you advise?" I asked. " That all go ashore and to the other end of the island. Wo will attract the crocodiles to that locality, and then return here in all haste and row away." The plan was the only one which promised relief, and in two minutes after it was proposed were hurrying to the lower end of the island. The saurians pursued us in both channels, thrashing the water in a terrible way, and we had scarcely stopped when a full score of them attempted to land, and would have done so had we not driven them back by the fire of our guns. The four natives removed their hats and shirts, rolled them into four respective bundles, and at a signal these were tossed far out into the lagoon. There was a terrible ru&h of the reptiles, and at the same moment we skurried for the boat and pushed ofF. Wo had nicely outwitted the enemy, and as we started away the two oarsmen nulled a stout stroke. We were 300 feet from the island, and almost in the river, when there was a sudden shock which threw us all down, and two of the natives went overboard. Wo had struck a snag and stove our boat, and tho water rushed in so fast that she swamped in?ido of two minutos. The four natives set up a dismal wail and started off in a body to swim to tho island. Had r-hey swam quietly, they might have reached it ; but the poor fellows were half crazed with fear, and they splashed the water about and kept up a sort of wailing, and the alligators were at once put on the scent. " We are to be eaten alive !" gasped my companion, as the boat settled down with us. " Don't follow," I warned, as he prepared to strike out after the natives. "If we have any show at nil, it is in drifting out into the liver with the boat." The gunwales of the boat were awash, and wo were both in the water clinging to the craft, he on one side and I on the other. There was a sluggish current there, but we had not diifted thirty feet from tho snag when we heaid tho shrieks and screams of the natives as tho reptiles rushed upon them. There was a terrible light over tho victims, and the waves kicked up helped to diivu u.s from the locality, and were probably the means of feaving our lives. After the first few words neither of us spoke. Any attempt to cheer and encourage would have been mockery. The moment we were sighted by a saurian our time had come. As we drifted slowly along one patted me by not more than ten feet as he made for the island, and for a few seconds I was blind with tenor, Foot by foot we drifted away and at length struck the current of the river, and it was not live minutes later when a boat from the steamer picked us up. They had heard the firing and knew that wo were in trouble, but had como too late to save our helpers from a tenible death.