Page:Luther S. Livingston (Parker).djvu/17

 dig out the eggs we heard the little darlings down below barking like puppies. They were just hatching and several little lizards had their snouts out of the shells. We helped a couple out and they were fierce as their mamma who, 12 or 15 feet long, was meanwhile swimming back and forth with the top of her head above water, in the river in front. The eggs were perhaps 4 inches long, ellipsoidal, and with a very delicate calcareous shell which dropped off almost when touched, leaving the thickish membrane behind. The young alligator was something like 8 inches long.

'After supper I smoked a cigar and swung in the hammock looking at the stars and thinking of home. The new moon "holding the old moon in its arms" was just setting as also was Orion. Immediately over me was Denabola the jewel in the handle of the "sickle." In the east the Southern Cross was just rising. The men settled themselves to sleep, two in hammocks on the sand, the others on the top of the cabin of the boat, and I was alone, awake there beside that softly flowing river beneath the Southern Cross. Now and then were soft lightning flashes in the west, and ever and anon flew overhead