"Alligator" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 a whole one; onions, flat ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... "It's either a big alligator acomin' surgin' and heavin' down the river, tryin' to drink up all the wather; or ilse it's that bully old Comfort swimmin' along, wid a bone in her teeth," declared Jimmie, after he had had ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... quite right to champion the Zulus, but for all that you do not sympathize with them. No doubt you know the Zulu way of cooking tomatoes and the Zulu prayer before blowing one's nose; but for all that you don't understand them as well as I do, who don't know an assegai from an alligator. You are more learned, Chadd, but I am more Zulu. Why is it that the jolly old barbarians of this earth are always championed by people who are their antithesis? Why is it? You are sagacious, you are benevolent, you are well informed, ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... Liver was at Perihelion, he had a Complexion suggesting an Alligator Pear, and his Eye-Balls should have been taken out ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... "Seven-fifteen! Aren't you ever going to get up for breakfast?" and he was not a hero-scientist but a rather irritable and commonplace man who needed a shave. They had coffee, griddle-cakes, and sausages, and talked about Mrs. McGanum's atrocious alligator-hide belt. Night witchery and morning disillusion were alike forgotten in the ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... Several times he invited me to go home with him, but I was afraid to trust myself. I pitied the poor little man so much that finally I yielded, and went home with him one evening. When we arrived I saw she was mad, and the devil was in her as big as an alligator. So I determined on my course. After supper her husband said very kindly: 'Come, wife, stop your little affairs, and let us have prayers.' To this she replied: 'I will have none of your praying about me.' Speaking mildly, I ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... dexterously mixing a salad of alligator pears. "Ah Foo, open some of those ports and let in the coal-dust. Have ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... "jealousy," be it that of a fish or a stag, is little more 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 ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... through whose tall palmettoes came the roar of the great ocean. The blue sky sparkled over us every day; now and then we met a little solitary craft; countless water-fowl were scattered about on the surface of the stream; a school of mullet was usually jumping into the air; an alligator might sometimes be seen steadily swimming across the river, with only his nose and back exposed; and nearly always, either to the right or to the left, going north or going south, were seven pelicans, ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... and the Casuarina remained at Kupang till June 3—twenty-eight days—enjoying the hospitality of the Dutch. Peron made several excursions for collecting purposes, and once shot an alligator nine feet long, which he skinned. He had the hide and head carried down to the port by Malays on long bamboo poles, this method of conveyance being necessitated by the superstitious refusal of the natives to touch even the skin of the dreaded beast. But the labour was ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... and roll the log; Hard pillow, but a soldier's 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 [10] crawling o'er the bank, And in that pond the flashing light Tells where the alligator sank. ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... of natural science study for the common schools. Among animals are the beaver, otter, squirrel, coon, bear, fox, wildcat, deer, buffalo, domestic animals, wild turkeys, ducks, pigeons, eagle, hawk, wild bees, cat-fish, sword-fish, turtle, alligator, and many more. Among native products and fruits are mentioned corn, pumpkins, beans, huckleberries, grapes, strawberries, cranberries, tobacco, pawpaw, mulberry, haw, plum, apple, and persimmon. Of trees are oak, ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... "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 to find ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... from his compadre, Black was blind and sixty-nine years old when he dictated his memoirs to a college graduate who had sense enough to retain the flavor. Black's history is badly botched, but reading him is like listening. "It took two coons and an alligator to spend the summer on that cotton plantation.... Cowpunchers were superstitious about owls. One who rode into my camp one night had killed a man somewhere and was on the dodge. He was lying down by the side of the campfire ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... head mistress of the Diocesan School at Amherst near Rangoon, and her pupils were bathing in the sea when one of them was bitten in the leg by a shark or alligator. Alarmed by this terrible shock she lost her balance and was being carried away by the tide when her sister and the head mistress both went to the rescue. Miss Grace Darling had succeeded in getting hold of her when she too was bitten and disappeared ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... reading an epitaph on a tombstone. So, at last, solitary and hopeless, I came back to my own land; and I found you,—a blessing greater than I had ever dared to count on. And how was I to maintain you, and take you from that long-nosed alligator called Crane, and put you in womanly gentle hands; for I never thought then of subjecting you to all you have since undergone with me,—I who did not know one useful thing in life by which a man can turn a penny. And then, as I was all alone in a village ale-house, on my way back ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in our own age ran the Hindu prophecy that Bhartpur should never fall till there came a great alligator against it; and when it fell to the English assault, the Brahmans found that the name of the leader was Combermere Kumhir-Mir, the ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... 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 ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... Western Australia, the Swan, the Irwin, the Greenough, the Murchison, and the Gascoyne, the Ashburton, the Fortescue, the De Grey, and another Fitzroy. On the north coast, we meet with the Victoria, the Daly, the Adelaide, the Alligator, the Liverpool, the Roper, the Limmen Bight, the Macarthur, the Robinson and the Calvert, the Albert—which is the outlet for the Nicholson and the Gregory—the Leichhardt and the Flinders, the Norman, the Gilbert, the Einesleigh, the Mitchell, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... of the Oronoko assert, that previously to an alligator going in search of prey, it always swallows a large stone, that it may acquire additional weight to aid it in diving and dragging its victims under water. A traveller being somewhat incredulous on this point, Bolivar, to convince him, shot several with his rifle, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... with 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 him for ...
— Stories of American Life and Adventure • Edward Eggleston
... after that, for he did the thing with great skill. When I had got so far, nothing could surprise me, and I didn't turn a hair when I found that I was expected to eat pears cut up with salad oil. But they were alligator pears, and when you tasted them, it appeared that they had nothing whatever to do with the fruit kingdom. Best of all, I liked the watermelon which came at the end, cut in little balls, looking like ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... moving his flat, carpet-slippered feet a laborious inch; "alligator. Alligator not goin' take you 'cross lake. No use lookin'. 'Ow Peter goin' come when win' dead ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... delightful weather: our wardrobe consisted of Kentucky jean trousers, boots, straw hats, two shirts, and jean hunting shirts—all thin, to be sure, but warm and comfortable enough for a day's hunt. We trudged about until noon, firing but once, and then at an alligator in a bayou, whose coat of mail laughed to scorn our puny bullets, and, barely flirting his horny tail in contempt, he slid from his perch back into the greasy and turbid stream. Seating ourselves upon a dead cotton-wood, we made a slight repast upon some cold pone, which, ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... administration. 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, ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... unknown epoch, a Chinese who was once sailing in a canoe, either upon the river Pasig, or that of St. Mateo, suddenly perceived an alligator making for his frail bark, which it immediately capsized. On his finding himself thus plunged in the water, the unfortunate Chinese whose only prospect was that of making a meal for the ferocious animal, invoked the aid of St. Nicholas. ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... to wade waist or knee deep in a Sunderbunds creek, and clear a boat with a yo-heave-ho, for fear of some festive mugger, which means alligator, lurking in ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... stand for a minute against these tanks! Why, Tom, they can crawl on their back as well as any other way, and they don't mind a shower of shrapnel or a burst of machine gun lead, any more than an alligator minds a swarm of gnats. The only thing that makes 'em hesitate a bit is a Jack Johnson or a Bertha shell, and it's got to be a pretty big one, and in the right place, to do much damage. These tanks are great, ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton
... of curious objects is dimly discernible; not articles of 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 of the zoological world—birds, quadrupeds, ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... third period, appears to have been of a tropical character. The climatic and seasonal divisions were not at all pronounced, and both animal and vegetable life took on gigantic and grotesque forms. In the ugliness of alligator and rhinoceros and hippopotamus of our day we get some hint of what early reptilian and ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... frequent intercourse with the pueblos beyond the mountains. Still farther on he met another man who had been at Cibola, and who also told him of a great river in which there were crocodiles. This was the Mississippi, of course, and the crocodiles were alligators. As Alarcon had never seen an alligator he took the description to mean crocodile. A little farther and he heard of the negro Estevan again and the reason why the Cibolans had killed him, which was to prevent the Spaniards, whom he described, from finding their way into the Cibola ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... look of surprise was painted on his face. In silence he looked toward the neighboring mountain and continued moving the handle of the net from one side to the other. Finally, without taking the net out of the water, he murmured in a low voice: "An alligator." ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... candour go hand in hand. A legend of the envious East represents that a Chicago young man travelling in Louisiana wrote to his sweetheart: "DEAR MAMIE,—I have shot an alligator. When I have shot another, I will send you a pair of slippers." The implication is, to the best of my knowledge and belief, a base and baseless calumny. New York itself does not present a higher average of female beauty than Chicago, and that is saying a great deal. But ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... "kids," with overpowering fear. We plunged ahead at random, when we suddenly found the water pouring through the bottom of our "schooner." The horses reared and plunged, snorting in terror probably at the near approach of some water snake or alligator. ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... do remember an apothecary,— And hereabouts he dwells,—which late I noted In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows, Culling of simples; meagre were his looks, Sharp misery had worn him to the bones; And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, An alligator stuff'd, and other skins Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves A beggarly account of empty boxes, Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds, Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses, ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... that pulls 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 pig in a wallow: ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... de mammy alligator, wid a motherly grin: "I nuver liked babies wid dey dimples tucked in, But our little pet, wid its horny hide, Like its mammy's an' its daddy's, is de fam'ly pride." An' dey ain't by deyselves in dat, in dat— An' dey ...
— Daddy Do-Funny's Wisdom Jingles • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... 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
... some rice-birds, and caught some trout. Honey of fine flavour is found in great abundance in the woods about the mouth of the river, and, for aught I know, in every part of the country. You perceive that I am constantly discovering new luxuries for my table. Not having been able to kill a crocodile (alligator), I have offered a reward for one, which I mean to eat, dressed in soup, fricassees, and steaks. Oh! how you long to partake of ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... ravaging flies by mosquito netting. He hoped that Ma would not hang them in the hall or the living-room. And that rocker, for which she yearned, was probably the one with the creaking coiled springs—the one that had leaped after him and clashed its jaws like an alligator. ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... of South America is very ferocious, and is popularly styled the hyena of the alligator tribe. This savage creature will instantly attack a man or a horse, and on this account the Indians of Chili, before wading a stream, take the precaution of using long poles, to ascertain its presence ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... arranged, fell over the top of his coat. The latter was of a light green colour, harmonising well with a pair of flowing yellow nankeen trousers, and a pink waistcoat, from the bosom of which, amidst a large bunch of the splendid flowers of the magnolia, protruded part of a young alligator, which seemed more anxious to glide through the muddy waters of a swamp than to spend its life swinging to and fro amongst folds of the finest lawn. The gentleman held in one hand a cage full of richly-plumed ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... ease, adroitly turn them on their backs; and as they turn many more than they can devour in one night, the Indians often profit by their cunning. The jaguar pursues the turtle quite into the water, and when not very deep, digs up the eggs; they, with the alligator, the heron, and the gallinago vulture ore the most formidable enemies the little turtles have. Humboldt justly remarks, When we reflect on the difficulty that the naturalist finds in getting out the body of the turtle, without separating the upper and the under ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... wish was gratified; but how? At the age 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 ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... miles in a straight line from the mouth of the river where we anchored for the night, we saw about six blacks, who were very friendly and followed us for some time. We found that the water was fresh when we reached Alligator Point, about twenty miles in a straight line from the mouth of the river; above this point the fringes of mangrove are scarce on the edges of the river, and back from the river there is rising ground, ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... 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 ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... shown the wildest interest in the proceedings, breaks his chain and rushes after that snake. He is a moment late, however, and his nose reaches the crack in the slabs just as the end of its tail disappears. Almost at the same moment the boy's club comes down and skins the aforesaid nose. Alligator takes small notice of this, and proceeds to undermine the building; but he is subdued after a struggle and chained up. They cannot afford ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... boat was tied, And all her listless crew Watched the gray alligator slide Into the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Wrenn, was bored. And the menu was foreign without being Society viands. It suggested rats' tails and birds' nests, she was quite sure. She would gladly have experimented with pate de foie gras or alligator-pears, but what social prestige was there to be gained at the factory by remarking that she "always did like pahklava"? Mr. Wrenn did not see that she was glancing about discontentedly, for he was delightedly ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... 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 ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, April 1887 - Volume 1, Number 3 • Various
... nothing resembling an alligator was seen, and the white members of the party enjoyed to the utmost copious ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... shadow of it, is not to be dreamt of; and our residence, as far as I can learn, is to be a half-furnished house in the midst of rice-swamps, where our habitual company will be our slaves, and our occasional visitors an alligator or two ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... I now had an opportunity to observe, was a fish of full one third the length of the whale itself, and of enormous bulk in proportion; it was covered with a dark rough skin, in appearance not unlike that of an alligator. The cachelot rushed upon its foes alternately, and the one thus singled out invariably fled, until the other had an opportunity to come to its assistance; the sword-fish swimming around in a wide circle at the top of the water, ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... want to take the big 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 it's all up ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... 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 the ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various
... smiled; 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
... harbors: Alligator Pond, Discovery Bay, Kingston, Montego Bay, Ocho Rios, Port Antonio, Rocky ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... something forgotten until now. As she stepped into the hall, a tall young man, with extremely long arms and legs, and mouth, that, although shaded by a faint outline of a mustache, invariably suggested an alligator, opened the door of Mrs. Simonson's rooms, opposite, and seeing Nattie, started back in a sort of nervous bashfulness. Recovering himself, he then darted out with such impetuosity that his foot caught in a rug, he fell, and ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... on horseback, each taking a spare pony; which will be led behind the wagon, a light "prairie schooner" drawn by two stout horses, and driven by an old French Canadian. I wear a sombrero, silk neckerchief, fringed buckskin shirt, sealskin chaparajos or riding-trousers; alligator-hide boots; and with my pearl-hilted revolver and beautifully finished Winchester rifle, I shall ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... my fishers from the other side of the bay told me of having seen great store of beasts bones, and bones certainly have once had flesh. George Evans, one of the Hector's men, was severely bitten by an alegarta, [alligator.] I gave orders to fill our water casks with all speed, and propose in the mean time to seek for refreshment. The tide flows here nearest east,[161] and rises high. The 21st we saw four natives, to whom I sent some beads and other baubles, making them understand by ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... that same 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 gentleman pleases, for a ten-dollar bill he can ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... of popular portraits is that of the Baniya, money-lender, grain-dealer, and monopolist, who dominates the material world as the Brahman does the spiritual. His heart, we are told, is no bigger than a coriander seed; he has the jaws of an alligator and a stomach of wax; he is less to be trusted than a tiger, a scorpion, or a snake; he goes in like a needle and comes out like a sword; as a neighbor he is as bad as a boil in the armpit. If a Baniya is ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... she's the daintiest of misses, With her pretty patent leathers or her alligator ties, With her eyes inviting glances and her lips inviting kisses, As she wanders by the ocean or strolls under ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... floating population. By these and the smaller craft are brought to the mole of the Malecon, besides articles for exportation, a boundless variety of fruits—pine-apples (whose quality has made Guayaquil famous), oranges, lemons, limes, plantains, bananas, cocoa-nuts, alligator pears, papayas, mangos, guavas, melons, etc.; many an undescribed species of fish known only to the epicure, and barrels or jars of water from a distant point up the river, out of the reach of the tide and the city sewers. Ice is frequently brought ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... the bay was a nunatak, which from its shape at once received the name of the Alligator. In front, apparently fifteen miles off, was another nunatak, the Hippo, and four definite outcrops—Delay Point and Avalanche Rocks—could be seen along the mainland. The sight of this bare rock was very pleasing, as we had begun to ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... 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 never betraying kin with its fellow of the swamp, save perhaps when winter has bared its peculiar ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
... that he did not fancy the man—not that he was on the surface other than a rough woods rover, with a laugh like the roar of a bull alligator, and a heartiness that seemed genuine enough; but something about his eyes caused the ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... was certainly a hard, impenetrable body, and not the soft substance of which all the marine inhabitants that he had heard of were made, such as whales, sharks, walruses, and the like. If anything, it more resembled a tortoise or an alligator. A hollow sound was emitted when it was struck, and it appeared to be made of cast-iron plates ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood
... a pane of glass, 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, to ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... sea-captain who had sent him "stuffed" natural-history curios from all parts of the world, and Mr. Parrott had arranged a rather picturesque interior. Miss Philamese Nile, president of the W.T.W.'s, stood beneath a dusty alligator that swung from the ceiling, and Cap'n Sproul, glancing from one to the other, confessed to himself that he didn't know which face ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... I found a tin of mushrooms and a package of egg-powder which had fallen down behind the locker, and there are other things as well that will go into it. But don't interrupt. Boiled yam, fried taro, alligator pear salad—there, you've got me all mixed, Then I found a last delectable half-pound of dried squid. There will be baked beans Mexican, if I can hammer it into Toyama's head; also, baked papaia with Marquesan honey, and, lastly, a wonderful pie the secret ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... in high-heeled shoes. Maisie had died in the effort to strap up a great portmanteau. She had died so grotesquely that her little body had fallen forward into the trunk, and it had closed upon her, like the jaws of a gigantic alligator. The key was in her hand. Her dark hair, like the hair of a Japanese, had come down and covered her body and ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... 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
... 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 v. Sc. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... scarlet silk sash at the waist, and open at the sides, through which the wide Mexican drawers were plainly visible; a broad, brimmed, low-crowned hat, of Spanish manufacture, with a band of silver bullion, covered his head, and boots of alligator hide, heavily ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... which devoured six of the rowers of Ulysses, M. Salverte, a recent compiler on the marvellous, is tempted to regard as an overgrown polypus magnified by the optical power of poetry, though we are disposed to give the credit to an alligator, or its mate, a crocodile; and this occurrence is not so fictitiously represented, as it is supposed ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... you know all about it. Secret no longer. Dr. MORTIMER 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... beach-hammock and spreads a sea of silvery green before the mansion is not barren of attractions. Inquisitive and faint-hearted fiddler-crabs are darting in and out of their holes in the mud: an alligator now and then shows a hint of a head above the water of the creek, along whose banks walk daintily and proudly egrets and herons robed in white, and from the reeds of which myriads of water-hens ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... ALLIGATOR [from the Spanish lagarto]. The crocodile of America. The head of this voracious animal is flat and imbricate; several of the under teeth enter into and pass through the upper jaw; the nape is naked; on the tail are two ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... garden carrying his big stick and small net. The garden has been almost destroyed by the ALLIGATOR, who still ...
— Children's Classics In Dramatic Form • Augusta Stevenson
... filled with small tables exquisitely furnished, and the carpets underfoot, thick-piled and deep-toned, gave a singular solemnity to the function of eating. It was a temple raised to the glory of terrapin and "alligator pears"; and as the Captain moved slowly across the aisles, closely attended by a zealous waiter he smiled and said to his wife: "This is a long ways from Sibley and the Golden Eagle, Bertie, ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... had, in some degree, been made the sanctum of its present occupants. Here was to be seen the scaly carcass of some huge serpent, extending its now harmless length from the ceiling to the floor—there an alligator, stuffed after the same fashion; and in various directions the skins of the beaver, the marten, the otter, and an infinitude of others of that genus, filled up spaces that were left unsupplied by the more ingenious specimens of Indian art. Head-dresses tastefully wrought ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... large, white-eyed holy terrors gazed at him in a kind of dumb, inquiring tone of voice, but he didn't say much. He seemed considerably reserved as to the plan of the campaign. The new teacher then unlocked his alligator-skin grip, and took out a Bible and a new self-cocking weepon that had an automatic dingus for throwing out the empty shells. It was one of the bull-dog variety, and had the laugh of a ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... its base is a structure, infinitesimal in size as compared with the one that towers above it, and in this structure there is a reclining statue of Buddha seventy feet long. Buddha must have been a giant, for his footprints are four feet long, and his tooth is as large as the tooth of an alligator, and surprisingly like one. ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... the Indian mother that throws her child into the Ganges, to be devoured by the alligator or crocodile, but that is joy in comparison with the Christian mother's hope, that she may be in salvation while her brave ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... 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 Maggie Brown was said to be the third ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... the axe, still faster the white chips. My! how strong the Toyman was! Now a big hole yawned in the trunk of the spruce, like the jaws of the alligator when he basks in the sun. It grew wider and wider. The Toyman looked around to make sure that the children were well out of harm's way, then he swung once more, one great hefty stroke, and with a great crash the spruce fell and measured its length in the snow. And the Toyman ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... to me, only two utter vocal sounds,—the alligator and the elephant tortoise. The former roars ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... regular troops, old French soldiers, and swarthy pirates, backed by the hunters of Tennessee in their homespun hunting-shirts, and the Kentuckians with their long knives. The latter boasted of their endurance of hardships and that they were not of woman born, but were half horse and half alligator. One stanza of a popular song, much used in a later campaign where the hero of New Orleans was the ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... half-open bag, which seemed crammed to the hinges with it, making an alluring bait. The long, black revolver of Shanklin's other days and nights lay there beside the bag asserting its large-caliber office of protection with a drowsy alligator ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... and not sharing in the adventurous and energetic spirit of their leader, remonstrated with him and proposed to return to their companions; but, disregarding them, he pressed on in his new enterprise. In wading a small stream, one of the men was carried off by an alligator, and a day or so after, another was bitten and killed by a rattle-snake. Terror seized upon his men, and all their persuasions proving fruitless, they determined to assassinate him and return. They did so, ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... moment when 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 narrative from ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... iguana, or big lizard, came waddling and wheezing down to the water, looking for all the world like a baby alligator. ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... in which Deerslayer was placed. His hands were free, however, and the savage was compelled to relinquish his hug, to keep his own face above the surface. For half a minute there was a desperate struggle, like the floundering of an alligator that has just seized some powerful prey, and then both stood erect, grasping each other's arms, in order to prevent the use of the deadly knife in the darkness. What might have been the issue of this severe personal struggle cannot be known, ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... Take 2 alligator pears, cut them into slices and put them into a salad dish; remove the shells from 4 hard boiled eggs, break the yolks into small pieces and sprinkle them over the sliced pears; cut the whites into fine strips, lay them in a circle round the dish close to the pears, pour over a fine ...
— Desserts and Salads • Gesine Lemcke
... walking distance of the station. They were grouped about four lunch baskets. One of the children, a little boy, held a black greyhound by a rope around its neck. Trina wore a blue cloth skirt, a striped shirt waist, and a white sailor; about her round waist was a belt of imitation alligator skin. ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... the porters advanced in line, like the Three Graces; and counting rapidly, I made out that their load consisted of one good-sized "Innovation" cabin box, two enormous alligator-skin dressing bags, one small bag, and two capacious hold-alls, umbrellas, parasols, and ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... 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 had bit it." ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... was a more public caress; and the captain in the Chinese dining-room placed Linda at a small table against the wall. There she had clams—she adored iced clams—creamed shrimps and oysters with potatoes bordure, alligator-pear salad and a beautiful charlotte cream with black walnuts. After this she sedately instructed the captain what to sign on the back of the dinner check—Linda Condon, room five hundred and seven—placed thirty-five ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... room, indicating the enormous size to which these extinct reptiles must have grown. One, the Iguanodon (case 3) was an animal that measured seventy feet in length. It existed in this country; various bones of it are in this case. The remains of the fossil Alligator, known as the mosasaurus, are also here, together with the wealden lizard of Kent, which was about twenty-five feet in length, and part of Cuvier's wonderful fossil Flying Lizard, or sterodactylus, which is described as a reptile having mammalian ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... result of intention rather than accident. These are sometimes called "Effigy Mounds." In Wisconsin, even implements, as well as animals, are symbolized. The beaver, the tortoise, the elephant, the serpent, the alligator seem to be their favorite animals, whose images they have endeavored to perpetuate in mounds, of course on a large scale. In Adams county, Ohio, on a steep bluff, 150 feet above the level of Brush Creek, may ...
— Mound-Builders • William J. Smyth
... rice, some white thread, sections of posel—a variety of bamboo—, atilwag leaves, and some beads. For Bognitan, a jar was partly filled with tanobong, and for Gilin, a jar of basi. Cooked rice was moulded into the form of an alligator, and was spotted with red, betel saliva. This, when placed on a basket of rice, was ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... am sorry for both of us, George, that we can't sit there under the trees and eat out of a basket and have spiders and ants in things and not mind it. Here we are in the land of Smithfield hams and spoon-bread and we ate canned lobster for lunch, and alligator ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... better build our fire big," said Long Jim. "I don't want to wake up in the mornin' an' find myself devoured by an alligator, jest when I wuz about to reach the ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... 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 of subaltern's butter), and many other fruits, ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... is—the present writer had it from Major Blifill, who runs a little steamboat upon one of the inland creeks where the alligator is still numerous enough to be an entertainment—that Mr. King was no doubt malarious himself when he sailed over Florida. Blifill says he offended a whole boatfull one day when they were sailing up the St. John's. Probably he was tired ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... swamps. Though it is of the colour of coffee, or rather of dark beer, and so impregnated with gases that it produces fever or cholera when drunk, yet it is—at least when it does not mingle with the salt water—so clear, that one might see every marking on a boa- constrictor or alligator, if he glided along the bottom ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley
... a qui l bel mango?" Her basket of mangoes certainly weighs as much as herself.... "a qui l bel avocat?," The alligator-pear—cuts and tastes like beautiful green cheese... "a qui l escargot?" Call her, if you like snails.... "Ca qui l titiri?" Minuscule fish, of which a thousand would scarcely fill a tea-cup;—one of the most delicate of Martinique dishes.... "a ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... snake, bull snake, and the various snakes usually found in the Atlantic states are here. Of the venomous kinds, multitudes are destroyed by the deer and swine. Chameleons and scorpions exist in the Lower Valley, and lizards everywhere. The alligator, an unwieldy and bulky animal, is found in the rivers and lakes south of 34 deg. north latitude. He sometimes destroys calves and pigs, and ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... animal's fault in particular if he was built that way like the camel, ship of the desert, distilling grapes into potheen in his hump. Nine tenths of them all could be caged or trained, nothing beyond the art of man barring the bees. Whale with a harpoon hairpin, alligator tickle the small of his back and he sees the joke, chalk a circle for a rooster, tiger my eagle eye. These timely reflections anent the brutes of the field occupied his mind somewhat distracted from Stephen's words while the ship of the street was manoeuvring and Stephen ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... older than steam power. He wears no gloves in the coldest weather; not always a coat, and never a decent one, at his work. He blows no cheery music out of a brass bugle as he approaches a town, but pricks the loins of the fiery beast, and makes him scream with a sound between a human whistle and an alligator's croak. He never pulls up abreast of the station-house door, in the fashion of the old coach driver, to show off himself and his leaders, but runs on several rods ahead of his passengers and spectators, as if to be clear ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... lizard found in our Western Territories and in Mexico, and variously known as the "Montana alligator," "the Gila monster," and "the Mexican heloderma," is becoming ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... the Senior Partner, in great glee. "You see I have my head screwed on the right way! But to answer you. GOTEMON's Patent Alligator's Skin Braces are attracting much attention just now, so is WIPE's Castle 2 Imperial William Champagne, which finds (I may observe confidentially) a ready sale at thirty-two shillings the dozen. Then there are AKE's Electric Tooth-brushes, and CRAX's Stained-glass Solid Mahogany Brass-mounted ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... light in his bedroom, Northwood examined the wallet. It was made of alligator skin, clasped with a gold signet that bore the initial M. The first pocket was empty; the second yielded an object that sent a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... 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. Kensitt and ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... the alligator pear, the papaya, and the mango at Honolulu, but we were still expecting strange and wonderful gastronomic treats in our ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... at the elbow-joint, as a consequence of an alligator-bite nine days before admission to the hospital. The patient exhibited a compound comminuted fracture of the right radius and ulna in their lower thirds, compound comminuted fractures of the bones of the carpus and metacarpus, with great laceration of the soft parts, laying bare the wrist-joint, ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... who professionally propelled the keels and flats of the Ohio, they were a class unto themselves—"half horse, half alligator," a contemporary styled them. Rough fellows, much given to fighting, and drunkenness, and ribaldry, with a genius for coarse drollery and stinging repartee. The river towns suffered sadly at the hands ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... 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 ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... thought; "and instead of following the horrible brute here have I run away; and now how am I to find the way that it pointed out? That's soon done," he said, as he thought of the broken and crushed-down canes which must mark the alligator's track; and he began at once to search for what proved to be absent. There were bruised and trampled growths which he sprang at directly, but his reason soon pointed to the fact that they had not been made by the huge lizard he had started from its lurking place where it had crawled ashore ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... purpose to powder the shillings or use them whole—I would have thought an alligator's or shark's tooth would scarcely require that ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... the South came the puma, American lion, Of the old house of Leo degenerate scion. The tapir, and also that excellent diver, Alligator, or Cayman, from Amazon river; And with him the Llama, whose sad trick of spitting Was thought by the company very unfitting. But, to shorten my tale, all the New World were there, From the tiny shrew mouse to the fierce grisly bear; Though ...
— The Quadrupeds' Pic-Nic • F. B. C.
... to St Petersburg, and innumerable ones to Liverpool and 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; even the matter-of-fact Richards could ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... to pursue these questions, when a stumping noise was heard outside, coming towards the door. 'Hush! here's Wegg!' said Venus. 'Get behind the young alligator in the corner, Mr Boffin, and judge him for yourself. I won't light a candle till he's gone; there'll only be the glow of the fire; Wegg's well acquainted with the alligator, and he won't take particular ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... 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 monster within the water with ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Alfalfa is a kind of corn fruit hay 6 7 Bacon comes from the cow hog sheep 7 8 An animal that builds dams is the alligator beaver turtle 8 9 Raisins are dried currants gooseberries grapes 9 10 London is in ...
— Stanford Achievement Test, Ed. 1922 - Advanced Examination, Form A, for Grades 4-8 • Truman L. Kelley
... 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 springing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... reigned beneath the dense foliage supported by the rank soil, and our hearts beat a few more pulsations to the minute, as we left the scorching glare of the noon day sun, and plunged into the gloomy fastnesses of the bear and alligator; to these latter gentlemen, whose clumsy forms were sprawling through the mud on every side, we gave no further heed other than to keep without the range of the deadly sweep of their powerful tails, with which they bring their unsuspecting prey within ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... in the road, through which Lowell had plunged to the scene of the murder when he had first heard of the crime, had been churned to dust. Lowell noticed that an old buffalo wallow at the side of the road was still caked in irregular formations which resembled the markings of alligator hide. The first hot winds would cause these cakes of mud to disintegrate, but the weather had been calm, and they had remained ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... 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 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... hooligan, larrikin^, dangerous classes, ugly customer; thief &c 792. cockatrice, scorpion, hornet. snake, viper, adder, snake in the grass; serpent, cobra, asp, rattlesnake, anaconda^. canker-worm, wire-worm; locust, Colorado beetle; alacran^, alligator, caymon^, crocodile, mosquito, mugger, octopus; torpedo; bane &c 663. cutthroat &c (killer) 461. cannibal; anthropophagus^, anthropophagist^; bloodsucker, vampire, ogre, ghoul, gorilla, vulture; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... water—put a sudden termination to this grand drama of the wilderness. The birds flew up into the air, and went soaring off in different directions over the tops of the tall trees; while the huge reptiles, that had been taught by the alligator hunters to fear the presence of man, desisted for a while from their predatory prey, and retreated to the reeds upon ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... Bays. Meet a Malay Fleet, and communicate with one of the Proas. Explore Port Essington. Attacked by Natives in Knocker's Bay. Anchor in Popham Bay. Visit from the Malays. Examination of Van Diemen's Gulf, including Sir George Hope's Islands and Alligator Rivers. Survey of the Northern Shore of Melville Island, and Apsley Strait. Interview with the Natives of Luxmore Head. Procure wood at Port Hurd. Natives. Clarence Strait. Leave the Coast, ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... confess I was afraid to trust myself" but at length, yielding to his importunities, he went home with his oppressed brother, intending to spend the night with him. His visit roused the fury of the wife, and "I saw in a minute," says our preacher, "that the devil was in her as big as an alligator, and I determined on my course." The woman held her tongue until after supper, when her husband asked her kindly to join them in prayers. She flew into a rage, and swore there should be no praying in her house that ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... old man, burned almost black by the sun and with the skin of his face as wrinkled as an alligator's hide, rose from a comfortable chair on the porch to greet them. He wore a long white goatee and military mustache. He had ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... beasts of prey like our alligators, but grew to larger size; some took to eating the plants, and came to walk on their four legs as our ordinary beasts do, no longer dragging themselves on their bellies as do the lizard and alligator, their lower kindred. Others became flying creatures like our bats, only vastly larger, often with a spread of wing of fifteen or twenty feet. Yet others, even as strangely shaped, dwelt with the ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... Penrod, "I will first call your at-tain-shon to our genuine South American dog, part alligator!" He pointed to the dachshund, and added, in his ordinary tone, "That's him." Straightway reassuming the character of showman, he bellowed: "NEXT, you see Duke, the genuine, full-blooded Indian dog from the far Western Plains and Rocky Mountains. NEXT, ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... every hue under God's blue skies made brilliant the river banks. At times the ship went so close that I could reach out and grab a limb of a tree, much to the indignation of the monkeys who chattered at me as if I had stolen something. Now and then a big lazy alligator slid into the water from the muddy banks as the wave-wash from our propeller ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... it seems to me more than doubtful whether we can even imagine something absolutely non-existent in nature. When the artist's imagination would construct, e.g., a winged dragon, the concept is always made up of parts which are real—eyes like an alligator, bat-wings, scales of a fish or crocodile, and so forth. All the members or parts are real, put together to form the unreal. I do not believe that any instance of a human conception can be brought forward which on analysis will not conform to ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... bottles—green bottles that lurked under the bed, red, blue and white bottles that climbed the walls and crowded the mantelpiece, tops of bottles that peered out of half-opened boxes, all ticketed and mustered in regiments. From the ceiling a baby alligator swung on a wire, blinking at them horribly with shining glass eyes; a stuffed owl sat in one corner; while opposite, a muskrat peered into a crow's nest. The closet and all available floor space were heaped high with ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... were rendered yet more oppressive to the spirits by the gloomy stillness of the 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 ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... AMERICANA. (The American Congress to General Anthony Wayne.) America, personified as an Indian queen, standing, and having at her feet a bow, an alligator, and the American shield, presents to General Wayne a laurel and ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... could reach; with its flat-top, square-sided, boxlike buildings, with here and there a structure taller than the others; the flash of light from Trinity's spire, its cross aflame; the awkward, crab-like movements of innumerable ferry-boats, their gaping alligator mouths filled with human flies; the impudent, nervous little tugs, spitting steam in every passing face; the long strings of sausage-linked canalers kept together by grunting, slow-moving tows; the great floating track-yards bearing ponderous cars—eight days from the Pacific without break ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... terribly turpentiney unless the trunk be gashed to let out the gum; 'monkey-plums' or 'apples' and 'governor's plums.' The common guavas are rank and harsh, but the 'strawberry guava,' as it is locally called, has a delicate, subacid flavour not easily equalled. The aguacate, or alligator-pear (Persea gratissima), which was not 'introduced by the Basel missionaries from the West Indies,' is inferior to the Mexican. Connoisseurs compare its nutty flavour with that of the filbert, and eat it with pepper, salt, and the sauce of Worcester, whose fortune was made ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton |
