Page:Colnett - Voyage to the South Pacific (IA cihm 33242).djvu/164

 From one of them I had a very fortunate ecape. As I was walking along the ea coat, with a gun, and very attentive to the woods, in expectation of eeing ome kind of fowl or game proceed from the thickets, uddenly my danger was dicovered, of having paed over a large alligator, laying aleep under a ledge of the rock, and appeared to be a part of it; and being in a deep hollow I could not have ecaped, if a little boy, the nephew of Captain Marhall, who accompanied me, had not alarmed me with his out-cry. I had jut time enough to put a ball in my gun, the noie having roued the hideous animal, and he was in the act of pringing at me when I dicharged my piece at him, its contents entering beide his eye, and lodging in his brain, intantly killed him; it was then taken on board, where part of him was eaten. In the tomachs of everal of the nakes which we took, there were fih in an undigeted tate, and of a ize that credulity itelf would almot refue to believe. Thee voracious animals, appear to have greatly leened the quantity of fih on the hores of this iland, which afforded uch an abundant upply of delicious and alutary food to former navigators. The woods alo abound with nakes of different kinds, the larget we aw were the hooded nakes. As I was itting on a bank at the ide of a rivulet, one of the maller bit me by the left knee, which