Col. Judd’s Narrow Escape.

The Hon. S. Corning Judd, our able non-partisan postmaster, has returned from the South, where he has been travelling for several weeks. Although his rheumatic pains have reduced his weight somewhat, he is the picture of health; and his sojourn in Florida appears to have been one continued round of excitement. He tells us of a marvellous adventure he had in Florida. He says that when he reached Thomasville, he fell in with his old friend, Col. J. H. McVicker, who inveigled him into going alligator-hunting one day. A negro guide volunteered to conduct them to an old bayou which had not been visited by white men for many years, and which was actually alive with alligators. Col. McVicker was armed with a Louis Sharpe’s rifle; and Col. Judd had the reliable old pepper-box pistol, with which he used to perform prodigies of valor in Southern Illinois during the civil war; so the twain felt tolerably secure. The darkey guide piloted them along through a lone wood, over a deserted rice-field, and through a luxuriant orange-grove, until they came to a slimy pool that lay sequestered among the orange, banana, and palm trees. Myriads of alligators swarmed upon the banks of this pool, and the party paused to observe the ingenious manner in which the monstrous reptiles secured their food. 204Of course, so far away from the haunts of civilization, these alligators were not able to diet upon dogs, cats, sheep, calves, pickaninnies, and other carnivorous prey, but were compelled to subsist wholly upon vegetables and fruits. While Col. McVicker and Col. Judd watched them, they saw the alligators poise themselves on their scaly snouts, and with magnificent sweeps of their long tails knock down the red oranges and yellow bananas from the tall trees o’erhead. It was observed that not less than a barrel of bananas and a bushel of oranges satisfied the average alligator; whereas in other parts of the South, the very largest alligator has been known to be sated with a moderately plump six-year old negro child. Eager for the combat, Col. McVicker rested his old reliable Louis Sharpe’s rifle on the stump of a hemlock, drew a bead on the biggest alligator in range, and blazed away. The unerring ball sped like lightning toward its victim, and struck the alligator on his massive forehead; but, so far from wounding the miserable reptile, it rebounded again, and buried itself to the depth of eight inches in the bark of a palm-tree near by. While Col. McVicker was reloading, Col. Judd popped away at the alligators with his relic of the civil war, and the alligators seemed to regard this as a species of delightful humor. However, one old alligator bethought himself of a device whereby he might circumvent the assailants: he cautiously 205circled around through the orange-grove, and came up behind the two Chicago sportsmen as they lay in ambush. Then, all at once, Col. Judd felt himself nipped rudely by the legs; and the next thing he knew, he was being scuttled off toward the slimy pool, between the remorseless jaws of the monster alligator. His struggles were vain; and what increased his horror of death was the hideous thought that he was about to be cut off in the very flower of his career as postmaster at Chicago. Deaf to his piteous entreaties, the alligator trundled his human prey down into the pool; and there the twain floundered about, amid the green slime and malarious ooze. Catching a fleeting glimpse of his friend McVicker in the crotch of an orange-tree, Col. Judd threw him a farewell kiss with his mud-stained hand. Then the alligator rolled Col. Judd under his tongue, and chewed on him a brief spell with his cruel fangs. But presently the alligator stopped chewing.

“My friend,” said the alligator hesitatingly, “I hate to disappoint you, but I’m afraid I’ll have to let you go ashore.”

Col. Judd listened: a new hope dawned in his bosom.

“The truth is,” continued the alligator, “I’ve been raised on a vegetable diet; but for years I have heard a great deal about that appetizing and palatable delicacy called human blood. I hoped to get a sample of this delicacy in you, but I find 206that I misplaced my confidence. Being somewhat of a dyspeptic, I hardly think that skin and bones would sit well on my stomach, with the fruit I have already eaten to-day. So, if you are so disposed, you may crawl out and go ashore.”