"Alligator" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... through his exertions had amassed the large fortune which he was now enjoying. He was a merry-hearted man, with excellent sound sense on all points except one—that one being the fair sex, with which he was about as well acquainted as an alligator with a camera-obscure. The attentions paid to him by Arthurine seemed to please the old bachelor uncommonly. There was a mixture of kindness, malice, and fascination in her manner, which was really enchanting; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... the hunting-party returned, bringing in three deer, six wild turkeys, twenty-five ducks, ten gray squirrels, and three rabbits, besides a wild steer, killed by Halliday. They had also killed a wild-cat, and a small alligator about seven feet long. A good heap of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... up to the front of the American Hotel, on Hanover Street, Boston, and stopped. The door flew open, and out stepped a smartly dressed young man, wearing russet shoes, a light-colored box coat and a brown Alpine hat. He carried a handsome alligator-skin traveling bag ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... from one end of the long bill-board to the other, was in manifest peril, should he miss the swinging trapeze at the finish of his flight, of landing within the wide open jaws of an enormous hippopotamus—designated in the picture as, "The Behemoth of Holy Writ." An alligator, sitting upright, and bearing the legend that he was one of the "Sacred Crocodiles of the Nile, to which the Indian Mothers Throw Their Babes," was leering with a hopeful smile at the proximity of a be-spangled lady ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... of Bharata's race, Drona, accompanied by all of his pupils, went to the bank of the Ganga to bathe in that sacred stream. And when Drona had plunged into the stream, a strong alligator, sent as it were, by Death himself seized him by the thigh. And though himself quite capable, Drona in a seeming hurry asked his pupil to rescue him. And he said, 'O, kill this monster and rescue me.' Contemporaneously with this speech, Vibhatsu (Arjuna) struck ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... side again, and at the bottom held the flask up to the light. Through the side slits in the alligator-skin covering, she saw the deep color of the contents; and, as she lifted the nozzle, she sniffed contemptuously. Then, she took a sample draught herself—to make certain ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... brat! you stinkin' little alligator bait!' He snatched de knife from my hand an' told me to stick out my tongue, dat he wuz gwine to cut it off. I let out a yell an' run behin' ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... odd-looking craft, with a vast coal-scuttle slanting aloft on the end of a beam, was steaming by in the distance, he indifferently drew attention to it, as one might to an object grown wearisome through familiarity, and observed that it was an 'alligator boat.' ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... row to-day I passed a huge dead alligator, lying half in and half out of the muddy slime of the river bank—a most hideous object it was, and I was glad to turn my eyes to the beautiful surface of the mid stream, all burnished with sunset ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... plastered with labels, the little shops,—so full of delightful, unnecessary things, candy and glace fruits, and orchids and exquisite Chinese embroideries, and postal cards, and theater tickets, and oranges, and paper-covered novels, and alligator pears! The very sight of these things aroused in her heart a longing that was as keen as pain. Oh, to push her way, somehow, into the world, to have a right to enjoy these things, to be a part of this brilliant, moving show, to play her part ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... than a transient rage at a rival who comes in presence of the female he himself covets or has appropriated. This murderous wrath at a rival is a feeling which, as a matter of course a human savage may share with a wolf or an alligator; and in its ferocious indulgence primitive man places himself on a level with brutes—nay, below them, for in the struggle he often kills the female, which an animal never does. This wrath is not jealousy as we know it; it lacks a number ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... do with this case?" I asked. "I got insured in the Wabash Mutual Internecine company against accident, and here I 've had an accident! Ivy poison is as severe an accident as can happen to any animal, except, perhaps, an alligator or a rhinoceros, and I think I ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... hair, instead of hanging long and straight down her back, as is customary with Indian women, was twisted into a knot, and held together on the crown of the head by an elegant comb. A pair of gold ear-rings, bracelets of the same metal, and half-boots of alligator's skin and scarlet cloth, completed her graceful exterior. From her girdle was suspended a pocket knife of considerable length, and in her hand she carried an empty basket. Her step could be called neither walking nor running; it was an odd sort of frisking ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... shore his boat was tied, And all her listless crew Watched the gray alligator slide ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Shawneetown, whilst "gliding merrily down the Ohio" in a keel-boat, "navigated by eight or ten of those half-horse and half-alligator gentry commonly called Ohio boatmen," Judge Hall was lulled to sweet sleep, as the rowers were "tugging at the oar," timing their strokes ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various
... with a candle on the inside. There is, I believe, no class of living creatures in which the gradations can be traced with such minuteness and regularity as in this; where, from the small animal just described, to the huge alligator or crocodile, a chain may be traced containing almost innumerable links, of which the remotest have a striking resemblance to each other, and seem, at first view, ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... the Tiare began at 6:30, but lingered for several hours. It was of fruit and coffee and bread; papayas, bananas, oranges, pineapples, and alligator-pears, which latter the French call avocats, the Mexicans ahuacatl, and were brought here from the West Indies. To this breakfast male guests dropped in from the bath in pajamas, but the dejeuner a la fourchette, or second breakfast at eleven, was more formal, and of four courses, ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... it be sufficient if I say that in discussing the Aladdin-like feast I secretly and faithfully promised my chef a material increase in wages. I had never suspected him of being such a genius, nor myself of being such a Pantegruelian disciple. I must mention the alligator pear salad. For three weeks I had been trying to buy alligator pears in the town hard by. These came from Paris. The chef had spoken to me about them that morning, asking me when I had ordered them. Inasmuch as ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... their yearly procession with snakes wrapped about their necks, waists, and wrists? And was there not, too, serious business to be done? How could he secure and forward to England a few things that he must have, such as a gar alligator, a pair of mocking-birds, a Floridian flamingo, a ruby humming-bird, "a Texan horned frog, with a distinctly-developed tail, crustaceous, probably antediluvian, and credibly reported to live upon air," not ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... of 1879 and 1880 was spent in Florida, hunting, fishing, alligator shooting and canoeing. He and a party of friends made a canoe voyage far up on the St. John's river and through the Kissimmee to Lake Okeechobee, where they had a great deal of sport shooting deer, bears and alligators; but at the same time the numerous moccasins and rattlesnakes ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... said Haltren, reflectively, closing the breech of his gun. He had hauled his boat up an alligator-slide; now he shoved it off the same way, and pulling up his hip-boots, waded out, laid his gun in the stern, threw cartridge-sack and a dozen dead ducks after it, and embarked among the raft of ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... the one-handled plows and the two-wheeled carts, is the carabao. The carabao, or water buffalo, is about the size of an ordinary American ox, and much like the ox, but his hide is black, thick, and looks almost as tough as an alligator's; his horns are enormous, and he has very little hair. Perhaps his having lived in the water so much accounts for the absence of the hair. Even now he must every day submerge himself contentedly in deep water, must cover his body like a ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... piney odour and the gloom—the awful natural stillness, Here in these dense swamps the freebooter carries his gun, and the fugitive slave has his concealed hut; O the strange fascination of these half-known, half-impassable swamps, infested by reptiles, resounding with the bellow of the alligator, the sad noises of the night-owl and the wild-cat, and the whirr of the rattlesnake; The mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing all the forenoon—singing through the moon-lit night, The humming-bird, the wild-turkey, the raccoon, the opossum; A Tennessee ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... of a bright American boy, the author shows how the necessary information is gathered. The securing of this often involves hardship and peril, requiring journeys by dog-team in the frozen North and by launch in the alligator-filled Everglades of Florida, while the enumerator whose work lies among the dangerous criminal classes of the greater cities must take his life ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... was about to draw out her head again, she noticed a shining speck in one of the top corners at the back of the cabinet. This was not the first time she had seen it, and she had always determined to look at it closer; but the cabinet stood on carved feet, like the claws of an alligator, and Grace's outstretched hand could not quite reach the back. But now the cabinet might be going away she felt that she must delay no longer, so she quickly crossed the floor and fetched the highest hassock from under the table, and planted it in front of the dark opening. Getting upon ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... and then I tried the Hoosier States, where they are 'half horse and half alligator;' his figure was somewhat in the backwoodsman style. But none of these ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... hundred pounds. It is the strongest for its size and the fiercest of all reptiles. Its jaws, though toothless, have cutting edges, a sharp beak, and power to the crushing of bones. Its armour makes it invulnerable to birds and beasts of prey. Like a log it lay on the beach, with its long alligator tail stretched up the bank and its serpentine head and tiny wicked eyes vigilantly watching the shore. Its shell, broad and ancient, was fringed with green moss, and its scaly armpits exposed, were decked with leeches, at which a couple of peetweets pecked ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... what it was, there was another movement just beyond, and this time he made out plainly enough the gaping mouth, prominent eyes, and rugged back of a great alligator, followed by its waving tail, as it dived down from a cluster of ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... (richly variegated in color) in Persian silk, in seal-skin, in the skin of the rabbit, white-bear, crocodile, cat, dog, mole, tiger, otter, buffalo, wolf, and even rattle-snake. A favorite modern leather for purses and satchels, alligator-skin, has been also applied to the clothing of books. Many eccentric fancies have been exemplified in book-binding, but the acme of gruesome oddity has been reached by binding books in human skin, of which many examples are on record. It is perhaps three centuries old, but the first considerable ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... furniture, for these are few, but things appertaining to the craft in which Shebotha is supposed to have skill—demonology. There are the bones and skins of monkeys, with those of snakes, lizards, and other reptiles; teeth of the alligator and jaguar; the proboscis-like snouts of the tapir and tamanoir, or great ant-bear, with a variety of other like oddities, furnished by the indigenous creatures of the Chaco in every department ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... was a stout, masculine woman, brought up in the woods, and never fainted in her life, even in presence of an alligator or a panther. So she had no scruples in seizing Mr. Maxwell by the nape of the neck, and giving him a kind of double twist, which sent him reeling into the corner of ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... opportunity to prepare dinner, assisted by Pedro. The natives preferred sleeping in their canoe. While we were engaged over our fish, I on a sudden looked up, and saw a huge animal of the tiger species stealing catlike towards the doctor, attracted probably by the carcass of the alligator. The creature seemed at that moment about to make its fatal spring. I had my gun providentially by my side. I shrieked out to the doctor to be on his guard, and at the same moment raised my weapon to my shoulder to fire. He had ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... was now under water stabbing his alligator, and took no notice of the indignant departure of the ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... carefully, tracing the wiring with blurred eyes. Then, in a moment of clarity, he saw it! Someone had put an alligator clip in the box. It was clamping a wire to a terminal post. He shook his head. Pretty sloppy work. It made no sense at all to use a clip on a permanent wiring job. Who had done it? Didn't he know the clip was apt to vibrate off during ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... man with horses, and had never liked an automobile half as much. He loved all animals and they seemed to love him too. At the present time his pets consisted of a small woolly dog, an angora cat, a parrot, and an alligator. The last named pet he kept in an old wash tub, half full of water, and called him Percy. He used to talk to all his pets as if they were human beings, Percy included, and many people had ventured the opinion that his brain was not quite as ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... wondering people that he saw Tom capture Sipo Tahib, as he called him, by jumping on his back and bending his forepaws over his neck. (Peter Parley's History, which Jim read at school, contained a picture of the naturalist Chatterton thus navigating an alligator, and Jim couldn't see why a tiger should not be handled the same way. He preferred, however, that some other boy should be the one to make ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... by no means the strangest animal which has made its home on board a man-of-war. In a small gunboat in China some years ago the ship's company acquired a so-called tame alligator. Algernon, as they christened him, came on board as a youngster a few weeks old and about four feet long, and soon developed a habit of appearing when the decks were being scrubbed in the mornings, when he revelled in having the hose played upon him and in having his scaly ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... supercargo, and bar-keeper in one, and a most interesting man. He apparently never slept, but at any hour was willing to sit and chat with me. It was he who first introduced me to the wonderful mysteries of the alligator pear as a salad, and taught me to prefer, in a hot country, Jamaica rum with half a lime squeezed into the glass to all other spirits. It was ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... hand-breadth of shade, but only the glowing upper blue, with huge dazzling clouds moving, like herds of white elephants pasturing across heavenly fields, too slowly for the eye to note their motion; and below, the far-reaching, tremulous sheen of reed and bulrush, the wet lair of serpent, wild-cat, and alligator. Now and then there was the cool blue of sunny, wind-swept waters winding hither and thither toward the sea, and sometimes miles of deep forest swamp through which the railroad went by broad, frowzy, treeless ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... Alligators, Crocodiles, Turtles, Lizards and Snakes. It is commonly said that reptiles are cold-blooded. This means that the temperature of their blood varies and is the same as the surrounding medium. The temperature of an Alligator that has been floating with its nose out of the water is the same as the surrounding water. The temperature of a turtle in the winter time is the same as the mud in which it is buried, while in the summer time it is much higher. What is true of the reptiles in respect ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... position on a shelf near by, and all southern visitors greet the Alligator as a familiar friend, as all of us joyfully meet ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... into view among the sedges; once an unseen alligator shook the silence with his deep, hollow roaring. Then the stillness of ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... in that alligator, Sheriff, that you're so careful not to set it down and forget it?" the chief ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... seemed nothing in this person's appearance to call forth such a welcome. He was dressed in a half-Indian, half-hunter's garb, a long-barrelled rifle was slanted over his shoulder, and he seemed a favorable specimen of the "half-horse, half-alligator" type of the early West. But there was a shrewd look on his weather-beaten face and a humorous twinkle in his eyes that betokened a man above the ordinary frontier level, while it was very evident that the guests present looked upon ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... David Crockett, fresh from the backwoods, half horse, half alligator, a little touched with the snapping-turtle. I can wade the Mississippi, leap the Ohio, ride upon a streak of lightning, and slip without a scratch down a honey-locust. I can whip my weight in wildcats, and, if any ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... is the way with all of them. Show me any Creole, or any number of Creoles, in any sort of contest, and right down at the foundation of it all, I will find you this same preposterous, apathetic, fantastic, suicidal pride. It is as lethargic and ferocious as an alligator. That is why the Creole almost always is (or thinks he is) on the defensive. See these De Grapions' haughty good manners to old Agricole; yet there wasn't a Grandissime in Louisiana who could have set foot on the De Grapion lands but at the ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... when, growing impatient of such close confinement, I requested the captain to set me on shore. The thing was voted impracticable; but I decided to make the attempt, and was accordingly rowed to the right bank of the river, when I took to the swamp, hungry and savage enough to have eaten any alligator fool-hardy enough to assail me. After a hard scramble, together with two or three plunges waist deep, I escaped suffocation, and gained one of the banks dividing and draining these vast fields: following this, unimpeded by other ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... are also alligator-pears, limes, and oranges. There is something about those oranges I should like to have explained. They are usually green and sweetish in taste, nor have they much white pith, but now and again you get a big bright yellow one from those trees that have ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... his club, and paddled for the shore. When he got near the shore, the alligators left him. He went a little farther up the river, and got some fish. When he came back, he kept close to the shore. One alligator twelve feet long followed him. When Bartram went ashore near his camp, the creature crept close to his feet, and lay there looking at ...
— Stories of American Life and Adventure • Edward Eggleston
... development thereof, of which the brain is the principal mass. A subordinate portion of the general life, however, is in the nervous system of the body, and in proportion as the brain declines in development the relative amount of psychic energy in the body is greater. Thus the body of the alligator after decapitation is capable of sensation and voluntary acts, such as pushing away an offending body with its foot. The character of the life in the body is explained by physiology and sarcognomy. Its universal presence is ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, April 1887 - Volume 1, Number 3 • Various
... no mistake. This ain't you. You're the whitest boss that ever looked down my shirt collar. That's so. That's what the boys all say. Just you pull out from the company and go with us. We'll carry you right up to glory on the back of a fire-snorting alligator." ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... We trust that editors throughout the State who are blessed with this world's goods to the extent of more than one pair of pants, will send one pair at least to John Turner, Mauston, Wis., by express. We are probably as poor as any editor, but we have sent him those alligator pants that have created such a sensation in years gone by. It is true they are a little bit fringy about the bottoms, and the knees are worn through, and concealment, like a worm in the bud, has gnawed the foundation all out of them, but in a little town like Mauston, ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... and down to your little den; where a coarse towel, and a couple of flesh-brushes smartly applied for five minutes, will produce such a circulation throughout your inward man, that, like bold Waterton, you feel as though you could back an alligator, take the sea-serpent by the beard, or kick a noisy steamboat fairly out ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... at 6 o'clock a.m., we got under weigh, and steamed up to the mouth of the Alligator river, where we arrived at 9 o'clock a.m. The Shamrock was lying close by. The weather was cold. At 1:30 o'clock p.m., the Valley City proceeded up the Alligator river. At 7 p.m. we anchored off Newport News. On the 10th, at 4 a.m., two armed boats' crews were sent ...
— Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten
... have known him But for the colored folk That here obtain And ne'er in vain That wizard's art invoke; For when the Eye that's Evil Would him and his'n damn, The negro's grief gets quick relief Of Hoodoo-Doctor Sam. With the caul of an alligator, The plume of an unborn loon, And the poison wrung From a serpent's tongue By the light of a ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... "stewed tripe Spanish." Someone must or they wouldn't advertise it on the outside of he restaurant. Well, it takes all sorts of people to make a world. Probably the man who would order "stewed tripe Spanish" wouldn't touch an alligator pear salad. To him alligator pears taste exactly like lard. To the person who wouldn't eat "stewed tripe Spanish" they ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... network. I began to fear that the youngsters had, in their hurry to overtake Spider, slipt from aloft and fallen into the water, where they might have stuck in the mud, or been carried off by some voracious alligator watching for his prey. Going a little farther, I again shouted, when a cry came from among the branches above my head: I looked up, expecting to see the lads, but could not make them out. At last I distinctly heard Tom's voice, exclaiming, 'Here we are, sir, but Spider will hold on by ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... bank of the stream was a clump of small trees and reeds which I walked up to examine with a desire to recognise any trees belonging to known species, but to my horror, on looking into the reeds, I saw what appeared to be a huge alligator fast asleep. The men now peeped at it and all agreed that it was an alligator. I therefore retreated to a respectful and suitable distance and let fly at it with a rifle; it gave, as we thought, a kind of shake, and then took no further notice of us. I therefore took a double-barrelled ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... Judgments of that sort he never reversed. He had fully determined to be the hawk, he had picked out his minnow, and he was meditating the capture of his prey. A great many people do as much as that, and discover too late that what they have taken for a minnow is an alligator, or a tartar, or a salamander, or some evil beast that is too much for their powers. This was what Mr. Barker was afraid of, and this was what he wished to guard against. Unfortunately he was a little late in the selection of his victim, ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... rocking-chair, which stood on the verandah. Bananas with their great ragged leaves, like the tattered habiliments of an empress in adversity, grew close up to the house. There was a tree just behind which bore alligator pears, and all about were the cocoa-nuts which gave the land its revenue. Ata's father had planted crotons round his property, and they grew in coloured profusion, gay and brilliant; they fenced the land with flame. A mango grew in front of the house, and at the edge ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... were put into great machines where heavy squares of copper, set in powerful presses, stamped upon them various patterns or impressions. The designs engraved on the dies were imitations of the texture of every known sort of fancy leather. There was alligator, lizard skin, pigskin, snakeskin and sealskin; even grained leather was copied. So perfect was the likeness that it seemed impossible to tell the embossed and artificially made material ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... carved, and inlaid with bits of crystal, porcelain, mother-of-pearl, and jade, is richly enamelled and gilt. The stem, which rises ten or eleven feet from the bows, represents the nagha mustakha sapta, the seven-headed serpent or alligator. A phrasat, or elevated throne (also termed p'hra-the-nang), occupies the centre, supported by four pillars. The extraordinary beauty of the inlaying of shells, mother-of-pearl, crystal, and precious stones of every color, the splendor of the gilding, and the elegance of the costly ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... by Gatteaux, the personification of America as an Indian queen with an alligator at her feet ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... time to stiffen. Even when dead, with its fierce head and cruel paws hanging over the end of the cart, it was not an object to be disrespected. The same reward is offered for a rhinoceros, five dollars for a crocodile (alligator?) and five dollars for a boa-constrictor or python. Lately, at five in the morning, a black tiger (panther?) came down the principal street of Malacca, tore a Chinamen in pieces, and then, scared by a posse of police in pursuit, jumped through a window into a house. Every door in the city was ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... of Colonel Taylor in Florida was his victory of OKEE-CHOBEE, which was gained on the 25th of December, 1837. The action was very severe, and continued nearly four hours. The Indians, under the command of Alligator and Sam Jones, numbered about 700 warriors, and were posted in a dense hammock, with their front covered by a small stream, almost impassable on account of quicksands, and with their flanks secured by swamps that prevented all access. Colonel Taylor's force amounted to about ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... however, the Bunnaa instrumental music generally, I would observe, that some of the vocal airs have a very pleasing effect when accompanied by the Patola. This is an instrument made in the fantastic shape of an alligator; the body of it is hollow, with openings at the back, and three strings only are used, which are supported by a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... seven sharp turns in that underwater causeway, and the edges of each turn were slippery slopes, up which an alligator certainly could climb, but that afforded not the least chance to a man whose foot once stepped too far and slid. And not only were there unexpected turns at different intervals, but there were gaps in the causeway of a yard ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... grater, placing immediately on the salad plates, which of course have already been garnished with lettuce leaves. Then add just a fine sprinkling of chopped apples (I find this the best substitute for alligator pears) and then the shrimps. Pour over this the mayonnaise ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... of anything more destructive of the whole theoretic faculty, not to say of the Christian character and human intellect,[31] than those accursed sports in which man makes of himself cat, tiger, leopard, and alligator in one; and gathers into one continuance of cruelty, for his amusement, all the devices that brutes sparingly and at intervals use against each other for ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... you send me a man—half horse and half alligator? I have got 'bit' once more! When ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... and, without a Red revolution, must come to the dust. The Fannies of our island—though this I say with reluctance—are not improving; and the Bath road is notoriously superannuated. Mr. Waterton tells me that the crocodile does not change—that a cayman, in fact, or an alligator, is just as good for riding upon as he was in the time of the Pharaohs. That may be; but the reason is, that the crocodile does not live fast—he is a slow coach. I believe it is generally understood amongst naturalists, that the crocodile ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... her own people. Her house became a Mecca for native men and women, usually performing pilgrimage privily after darkness fell, with presents always in their hands— squid fresh from the reef, opihis and limu, baskets of alligator pears, roasting corn of the earliest from windward Cahu, mangoes and star-apples, taro pink and royal of the finest selection, sucking pigs, banana poi, breadfruit, and crabs caught the very day from Pearl Harbour. Mary Mendana, wife of the Portuguese Consul, ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... replied Mrs. Quack. "Some folks call him Alligator and some just 'Gator, but we call him Old Ally. He's a very interesting old fellow. Some time perhaps I'll tell you more about him. Mr. Quack and I kept out of his reach, you may be sure. We lived quietly and tried to get in as good condition as possible for the long journey ...
— The Adventures of Poor Mrs. Quack • Thornton W. Burgess
... hotel always stopped Mrs. Maggie Brown. Mrs. Brown was a bony woman of sixty, dressed in the rustiest black, and carrying a handbag made, apparently, from the hide of the original animal that Adam decided to call an alligator. She always occupied a small parlour and bedroom at the top of the hotel at a rental of two dollars per day. And always, while she was there, each day came hurrying to see her many men, sharp-faced, anxious-looking, with only seconds to spare. For ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... to San Diego is not far—a matter of twenty miles or so. Across the mouth of San Diego bay, on the inner shore of which sits the town, North Island stretches itself like a huge alligator lying with its back above water; a long, low, sandy expanse of barrenness that leaves only a narrow inlet between its westernmost tip and the long rocky finger ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... even a legend about Snow Bird, the only daughter of Bald Eagle and White Rock, his wife. Inside the cavern, if you look carefully, there is to be seen the outline of the lovely face of Snow Bird on the great stone wall. There are a Wigwam, and an Iceberg, an Alligator, and the Golden Horseshoe and Balcony of the Metropolitan, all in ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... of chairs. On it Mavis Greenfield had placed a number of enigmatic articles, some of which would be employed as props in one manner or another during the evening's work. The most prominent item was a small suitcase in red alligator hide. Dr. Ormond, however, passed up the suitcase, took a small flat wooden plate from the table and returned to the center of ...
— Ham Sandwich • James H. Schmitz
... in the southern states of North America up to 12 ft. in length, and the small A. sinensis in the Yang-tse-kiang. In Central and South America alligators are represented by five species of the genus Caiman, which differs from Alligator by the absence of a bony septum between the nostrils, and the ventral armour is composed of overlapping bony scutes, each of which is formed of two parts united by a suture. C. sclerops, the spectacled alligator, has the widest ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... bad as that, though 'tis, almost," said Mrs. Watson. "There isn't an elephant, but there is an alligator." ...
— The Curlytops and Their Pets - or Uncle Toby's Strange Collection • Howard R. Garis
... of bacon, is a print of "my great-grandfather who discovered a cure for scurvy." A missionary's box of toys for some Christmas tree in Far North fastnesses is opened, and here a native stops work to lead along the sand a pink-and-blue alligator. ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... Atlanta friend heard this story in Florida, but an alligator was substituted for the fox, and a little boy for the rabbit. There is another version in which the impertinent gosling goes to tell the fox something her mother has said, and is caught; and there may be other versions. I have adhered to the middle Georgia ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... Mrs. Hignett was crunching the gravel of the drive, Eustace was lying in bed, listening to Jane Hubbard as she told the story of how an alligator had once got into her tent while she was camping on the banks of the Issawassi River in Central Africa. Ever since he had become ill, it had been the large-hearted girl's kindly practice to soothe him to rest with some such ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... man on the trip for various reasons. "No, maybe not, Koku. Your skin is pretty tough. But I understand there are deep pools of water in the land where we are going, and in them lives a fish that has a hide like an alligator and a jaw like a shark. If you fall in ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... the island, they leaped out of it together. Stam hurried up to a huge alligator and took deliberate aim before pulling the trigger; but, to his chagrin, the alligator still blinked at him after the hammer struck ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... regiment acted in East Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, in the course of which service I was in several engagements against the enemy—viz., at the Alligator Bridge, in East Florida; at Doctor Brimstone's Plantation, in Georgia; at New Port Meeting-house, in Georgia; at New Port Bridge, in Georgia; at Stone Ferry, in South Carolina; and afterwards at the reduction of Sunbury Fort, in the Province ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... might the shade of Apicius[A] lament that America and turtle were not discovered in his days. There were the guanas, too, in abundance, with their mouths sewed up to prevent their biting; these are excellent food, although bearing so near a resemblance to the alligator, and its diminutive European representative, the harmless lizard. Muscovy ducks, parrots, monkeys, pigeons, and fish. Pine apples abounded, oranges, pomegranates, limes, Bavarias, plantains, love apples, Abbogada pears (better known by the name ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... affair for our paper, giving the small list of guests and the long line of refreshments—which included alligator-pear salad, right out of the Smart Set Cook Book. Moreover, when Jefferson appeared in Topeka that fall, Priscilla Winthrop, who had met him through some of her Duxbury friends in Boston, invited him to run down for a luncheon ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... The huge alligator tore up to Joam Garral, and after knocking him over with a sweep of his tail, ran ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... moored at the camp, in two fathoms, close to the bank. Having obtained a supply of water, I despatched Mr. Baines, with Phibbs, Shewell, and Dawson, in the gig to bring up the sheep, the long-boat also going down the river with a crew from the vessel to bring up the kedge anchor and warp from Alligator Island, and also to assist in bringing up the sheep. In the evening there was a fine breeze from the east, and the thermometer fell to 65 degrees during the night. A few days before our arrival one of the kangaroo dogs had been ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... GRANVILLE has told the Times how it's done. Consider it great shame. Takes the bread, so t' speak, out of one's mouth." Here the Sage gave a lurch and seated himself accidentally on a stuffed alligator. Seeing that his host was about to indulge in an untimely nap, PETER thought the moment had arrived to urge him to reveal his wonderful secret. "I implore you to tell me how you have managed to live for so many years when all ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... surrounding forests. The rude warriors were filled with sentiments of awe. Not a bark dimpled the waters. No living thing was to be seen but the wild tenants of the wilderness, the unwieldy boa, and the loathsome alligator basking on the borders of the stream. The trees towering in wide-spread magnificence towards the heavens, the river rolling on in its rocky bed as it had rolled for ages, the solitude and silence of the scene, broken only by the hoarse ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... may at least attain a length of six feet, and, considering their intense pugnacity, a crab of such dimensions would be as formidable a creature as one could well imagine. And their amphibious capacity would give them an advantage against us such as at present is only to be found in the case of the alligator or crocodile. If we imagine a shark that could raid out upon the land, or a tiger that could take refuge in the sea, we should have a fair suggestion of what a terrible monster a large predatory crab might prove. And so far as zoological science goes we must, at least, admit that such ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... of nineteen he went down the Mississippi to New Orleans as a flatboat hand, temporarily joining a trade many members of which at that time still took pride in being called "half horse and half alligator." After his return he worked and lived in the old way until the spring of 1830, when his father "moved again," this time to Illinois; and on the journey of fifteen days "Abe" had to drive the ox wagon which carried the household goods. Another log cabin was built, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... art lover, nor the Paris of the lover of history, nor yet again the Paris of the worth-while Parisians —but the Paris which the casual male visitor samples, is the most overrated thing on earth, I reckon—except alligator-pear salad —and the most costly. Its system of conduct is predicated, based, organized and manipulated on the principle that a foreigner with plenty of money and no soul will be along pretty soon. Hence by day and by night ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... stream nothing resembling an alligator was seen, and the white members of the party enjoyed to the utmost copious draughts of ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... cosmopolitan sort of arboreal growth. At its full strength of hard, solid, time-defying wooded body on the edge of some almost inaccessible swamp of the South, where its spread-out roots and ridgy branches earn for it another common name as the "alligator tree," it is in a park or along a private driveway at the North quite the acme of refined tree elegance, all the summer and fall. It takes on a rather narrow, pyramidal head, broadening as it ages, but ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
... McKinlay started with a well-equiped party for an exploring trip, which was to last twelve months. At the end of five he returned, after one of the most miraculous escapes of himself and party from destruction on record, having only penetrated to the East Alligator River, about 80 miles from Adam Bay; here he became surrounded by floods, and only saved his own and the lives of his party (loosing all else) by the desperate expedient of making a boat of the hides of their horses, in which they floated down the swollen river, and ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... fact. The polite manager, Eddie S. Riddick, Esq., soon saw Capt. Busby, and his gondola was chartered to carry the party to the Lake. Mr. Riddick made every preparation necessary for them, but one of the parties heard that an alligator was on exhibition near the hotel, and thinking that it was brought from the Lake, at once provided himself with a rifle and a large quantity of fixed ammunition. All were then ready and they left for the canal, where ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... the sea-shore to gather mosses, and never returned," replied the Signor. "It is supposed she slipped into the water and was drowned, or that she was seized by an alligator." ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... for Paul on a Northern bound boat and bought him many little presents ere wishing him God speed. Among them and prized most highly, were two red birds and a young alligator. At five o'clock that evening came the order: "All aboard! Haul in your gang- planks!" Just then a weird musical chant was struck up by the slaves working on the levee, which was answered by the boat's crew, as she backed out into the river ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... Anita; In the Plaza, in the Square; Where the little fenced-in fountain Throws its water in the air; Where the old pet alligator stays, And winks his knowin' eye, And says, "Patience, Senorita," He'll be with you by ...
— Rhymes of the Rookies • W. E. Christian
... tropical region, the main natural and cultivated products are: sugar-cane, rubber, coffee, oranges, bananas, limes, cacao or chocolate, tobacco, pepper, vanilla, henequen or hemp, rice, cocoanuts, ahuacates or "alligator-pears," yucca, indigo, ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... cautiously inquired as to the route and towns, and by the assistance of our map and the stars, got along very well indeed, until we came to the Suwanee River. We had intended to cross this at Columbus or Alligator. When within six miles of the river we stopped at some negro huts to get some food. The lady who owned the negros was a widow, who was born and raised in Massachusetts. Her husband had died before the war began. An old negro woman told her mistress that we were at the ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... this place, all the varied powers of landscape that the most luxuriant fancy can suggest. But, while enjoying the picturesque beauties of the scene, or sheltering in the translucent stream from the fervour of meridian heat, you are suddenly chilled with fear, from the terrific aspect of the alligator, or crested snake, and a number of venomous reptiles, with which this country abounds. There is one in particular called the cowk cowk; it is the most disgusting looking animal that creeps the ground, and its bite is mortal. It ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... splendor of the swamp, With pomp of scarlet and of purple bloom, Where blow warm, furtive breezes faint and damp, Strange insects whir, and stalking bitterns boom— Where from stale waters dead Oft looms the great-jawed alligator's head. ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... Merton in a low voice. 'Been alligator farming, or ostrich farming, or ranching, and come back shorn; they all come back. He wants to be an ecclesiastical "chucker out," and cope with Mr. ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... misery had worn him to the bones: And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, An alligator stuffed, and other skins Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves A beggarly account of empty boxes. Romeo and Juliet, Act ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... to China and North America the alligator of the Yangtsze-kiang is generically identical with its Mississippi relative. The spoon-beaked sturgeon of the Yangtsze and Hwang-ho is, however, now separated, as Psephurus, from the closely allied American Polyodon. Among insectivorous mammals the Chinese and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... learning the joyful news, carried the knight and the Lindwurm in triumph into the city of Bruenn, where they have ever since treasured up the memento of their former tyrant. The animal, or reptile, thus preserved, is undoubtedly of the crocodile or alligator species, although I regret it was not in my power to examine it more particularly, evening having set in when I saw it in the arched passage leading to the town-hall of the city where it has been suspended. I fear also that any attempt to count ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various
... former declared. "And that's where old Sam kept his books." He ran his thumb-nail over the significant file-marks on the handle. "Looks like an alligator ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... when you take up and remove a sleeping child, you must call its spirit, else it will cry, on awaking, until you have taken it back to the same place and invoked its spirit. They believe that turning an alligator on his back will bring rain; and they will not talk about one when in a boat, lest a storm should ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... feeling in Mr. Turnbull, and he looked about almost disconsolately for some sign of life. What sort of life he expected it to be if it appeared, he did not very clearly know. He has since confessed that he thinks that in his subconsciousness he expected an alligator. ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... possessor could not wait until they grew up before digging them; cactus leaves, the spines shaved off, cut up into tiny squares to serve as food; bundles of larger cactus spines brought in by hobbling old women or on dismal asses and sold as fuel, aguacates, known to us as "alligator pears" and tasting to the uninitiated like axle-grease; pomegranates, pecans, cheeses flat and white, every species of basket and earthen jar from two-inch size up, turnips, some cut in two for those who could not afford ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... the art of standing began with birds. Frogs sit, and, as far as I know, every reptile, be it lizard, crocodile, alligator, or tortoise, lays its body on the ground when not actually carrying it. And these have each four fat legs. Contrast the flamingo, which, having only two, and those like willow wands, tucks up one of them and sleeps poised high on the other, like ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... 100) is a good illustration of this type. It is a character-story. In the naive form of a folk tale, it doubtless embodies the observations of a seeing eye, in a country and time when the little jackal and the great alligator were even more vivid images of certain human characters than they now are. Again and again, surely, the author or authors of the tales must have seen the weak, small, clever being triumph over the bulky, well-accoutred, stupid adversary. Again and again they had laughed at ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... head That's half the time in brake and bog Must never think of softer bed. The owl is hooting to the night, The cooter crawling o'er the bank, And in that pond the flashing light Tells where the alligator sank. ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... domesticated. The tall mango-tree, with rich, glossy leaves, the branches bending under the weight of its delicious fruit, is seen growing everywhere, though it is not a native of these islands. Among other fruit-trees we observe the feathery tamarind, orange, lime, alligator-pear, citron-fig, date, and rose apple. Of all the flowering trees, the most conspicuous and attractive is one which bears a cloud of brilliant scarlet blossoms, each cluster ball-shaped and as large as a Florida orange. ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... the question was, 'Who was Columbus?' an' the answer was, 'He was the son of er extinguished alligator,' an' Miss Carrie laughed, an' said that ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... our geographical pretensions. Our rivers, forests, mountains, cataracts, prairies, and inland seas were to find in him their antitype and voice. Shaggy he was to be, brown-fisted, careless of proprieties, unhampered by tradition, his Pegasus of the half-horse, half-alligator breed. By him at last the epos of the New World was to be fitly sung, the great tragi-comedy of democracy put upon the stage for all time. It was a cheap vision, for it cost no thought; and, like all judicious ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... round as a hole in the ground, And weasels are wavy and sleek; And no alligator could ever be straighter Than lizards that live in a creek. But a Camel's all lumpy And bumpy and humpy— ANY SHAPE does ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl
... Steward and his royal bride resided. Now, some time before the Princess was about to present her husband with a babe, she dreamed a dream; it was enough to terrify her, for she dreamed that, instead of a smiling infant, she should have to nurse a little green dragon. To nurse a small crocodile or alligator, or even a young hippopotamus, would have been bad enough, but a green dragon, with claws and a long wriggling fork-pointed tail, was out of the question; the very idea was enough to drive her distracted. The Lord High Steward was a man who ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... spring at them, on the tall tree where he clung with his claws unsheathed, until a young fellow came up with a gun and shot him dead. They went through and through the swamp at Musquash Hollow; but found nothing better than a wicked old snapping-turtle, evil to behold, with his snaky head and alligator tail, but worse to meddle with, if his horny jaws were near enough to spring their man-trap on the curious experimenter. At Wood-End there were some Indians, ill-conditioned savages in a dirty tent, making baskets, the miracle of which was that they were so clean. They had seen a young ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... and at it agin, as hard as he could lay on. I believe in my soul he would have nearly killed me, if it hadn't a been for a great big nigger wench he had, called Rose. My! what a slashin' large woman, that was; half horse, half alligator, with a cross of the mammoth in her. She wore a man's hat and jacket, and her petticoat had stuff enough in it to make the mainsail of a boat. Her foot was as long and as flat as a snow shoe, and her hands looked as shapeless and as hard as two large sponges ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... eccentric. The colors are well represented; for, beside Oil and Paint for materials, there are Brown, Black, Blue, Green, White, Cherry, Gray, Hazel, Plum, Rose, and Vermilion. The animals come in for their share; for we find Alligator, Bald-Eagle, Beaver, Buck, Buffalo, Eagle, Eel, Elk, Fawn, East-Deer and West-Deer, Bird, Fox, (in Elk County,) Pigeon, Plover, Raccoon, Seal, Swan, Turbot, Wild-Cat, and Wolf. Then again, the christening seems to have been preceded by the shaking in a hat of a handful of vowels and consonants, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... "An alligator!" exclaimed the Major; "well, I had no idea that there were any here inland. They said that there were plenty at the mouths of the rivers, on the coast of the Eastern Caffres, but I am astonished ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... harbors: Alligator Pond, Discovery Bay, Kingston, Montego Bay, Ocho Rios, Port Antonio, Rocky Point, ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... trees just to try his strength. Sometimes he went silently, and sometimes like an avalanche. He swam alone in the deep holes, and sometimes shut his eyes and stood on the bottom, just keeping the end of his trunk out of the water. One day he was obliged to kneel on the broad back of an alligator who tried to bite off his foot. He drove the long body down into the muddy bottom, and no living creature, except possibly the catfish that burrow in the mud, ever ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... There the Indian, without communicating his thoughts to his companion, silently divested himself of the little remnant of clothing that remained to him, and glided off among the bushes—like a jaguar advancing through the underwood to surprise the gaunt alligator on the bank of some ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... mamma," said Grace, waking up to the fact that there was embarrassment in meeting this trifling charge. "I have money;" and she opened her dainty purse for the purpose—a silvery alligator thing with golden clasps and her monogram on it in jewels, and took out the money needed. Her sisters and brother had a glimpse of bills and silver in that ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various |
