Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/576

492 yards before it dipped, filled, upset, and threw them both into the water. At that moment there were perhaps twenty alligators in sight on the banks and swimming in different parts of the river. We could do nothing for the man and boy, and the old bungo, which before hardly moved, seemed to start forward purposely to leave them to their fate. Every moment the distance between us and them increased, and on board all was confusion; the patron cried out in agony to the señores, and the señores, straining every nerve, turned the bungo into the bank, and got the masts foul of the branches of the trees, which held her fast. In the meantime our friends in the water were not idle. The Peten lad struck out vigorously toward the shore, and we saw him seize the branch of a tree, which projected fifty feet over the water, so low as to be within reach, haul himself up like a monkey, and run along it to the shore. The marinero, having the canoe to himself, turned her bottom upward, got astride, and paddled down with his hands. Both got safely on board, and, apprehension over, the affair was considered a good joke.

In the meantime, our masts had become so locked in the branches of the trees that we carried away some of our miserable tackling in extricating them; but at length we were once more in the middle of the river, and renewed our war upon los enemigos de los Christianos. The sun was so hot that we could not stand outside the awning, but the boatmen gave us notice when we could have a shot. Our track down the river will be remembered as a desolation and scourge. Old alligators, by dying injunction, will teach the rising generation to keep the head under water when the bungoes are coming. We killed perhaps twenty, and others are probably at this moment sitting on the banks with our bullets in their bodies, wondering how they came there. With rifles we could have killed at least a hundred.

At three o'clock the regular afternoon storm came on, beginning with a tremendous sweep of wind up the river, which turned the bungo round, drove her broadside up the stream, and before we could come to at the bank we had a deluge of rain. At length we made fast, secured the hatch over the place prepared for us, and crawled under. It was so low that we could not sit up, and, lying down, there was about a foot of room above us. On our arrival at the Palisada we considered ourselves fortunate in finding a bungo ready, although she had already on board a full load of logwood from stern to stern. Don Francisco said it would be too uncomfortable, and wished us to wait for a bungo of his own; but delay was to us a worse evil, and I made a bargain to have a portion of the logwood taken out behind the mainmast, so as to admit of a hatch on deck, and give room below. But