of their closing jaws, their plunging amidst the broken banks of fish, the
rising with their prey some feet upright above the water, the floods of water
and blood rushing out of their mouths, and the clouds of vapour issuing
from their wide nostrils, very truly frightful. This scene continued at inter-
vals during the night, as the fish came to the pass.’’ William concluded he
was now safe, the alligators being preoccupied. But then danger appeared
from behind. Two bears, smelling his supper, approached to within thirty
yards. William’s gun misfired but made sufficient noise to send the would-
be marauders into retreat, ‘‘leaping and plunging a long time’’ through
the underbrush and swamps. There were no further close encounters that
night, but poor William knew scant repose owing to screeching owls and
bellowing alligators. Finally he slept a bit toward morning, arising to ‘‘per-
fect peace.’’ The alligators themselves now were asleep with bellies full.
William paddled southward, then, and considering his terrifying experi-
ences the previous evening and night, readers of hisTravelsmay justly be
alarmed to learn that, observing by a shady riverbank what had been de-
scribed to him earlier as alligator nests, he steered without hesitation to
the closest landing so he might inspect them! Curiosity always overcame
fright with William. (During my own brief excursion on the St. Johns in
, a young mother alligator swam vigorously toward our boat, which
had paused near her nest.) That evening, however, as he sought another
bankside camp, he was startled when ‘‘a huge crocodile rising up from the
bottomclosetome...plunged down again under my vessel.’’ Knowing
again he was obliged ‘‘to be on my guard,’’ he spent another restless, watch-
ful night, during which he discovered the ‘‘crocodile...dashing my canoe
against the roots of a tree [to which it was tied], endeavouring to get into her
for the fish.’’ ‘‘Another time in the night I believe I narrowly escaped being
dragged into the river by him; for when again through excessive fatigue I
had fallen asleep, but was again awakened by the screaming owl, I found
the monster on the top of the bank, his head towards me not above two
yards distant.’’ William jumped up with his gun, and the alligator ‘‘plunged
back into the water.’’ He got no more sleep but maintained a high camp-
fire, and he stole away as soon as light permitted.
William Bartram’s summary report on alligators mixes awe and fear with
the naturalist’s compulsion to inform:
The alligator when full grown is a very large and terrible creature, and
of prodigious strength, activity, and swiftness in water. I have seen them
twenty feet in length, and some are supposed to be twenty-two and