white foam, sprinkled with red, which, dropping from his mouth, rolled down his shaggy breast. Frantic from the smarting of his wounds, he stood gnashing his teeth and growling at the enemy.

A few paces in his rear was the cane-brake from which he had issued. On a bank of snow-white shells, spotted with blood, in battle array, stood Bruin's foe, in shape of an alligator, fifteen feet long.

He was standing on tip-toe, his back curved upwards; and his mouth, thrown open, displayed in his wide jaws two large tusks and rows of teeth. His tail, six feet long, raised from the ground, was constantly waving, like a boxer's arm, to gather force; his big eyes, starting from his head, glared upon Bruin, whilst sometimes uttering hissing cries, then roaring like a bull.

The combatants were a few paces apart when I stole upon them, the "first round" being over. They remained in the attitudes described for about a minute, swelling themselves as large as possible, but marking the slightest motions with attention and great caution, as if each felt confident that he had met his match.

During this pause I was concealed behind a tree, watching their manœuvres in silence. I could scarcely believe my eyesight. What," thought I, “can these two beasts have to fight about?" Some readers may doubt the tale on this account; but if it had been a bull-fight, no one would have doubted it, because everyone knows what they are fighting for. The same reasoning will not always apply to a man-fight. Men frequently fight, when they are sober, for no purpose except to ascertain which is the better man. We must, then, believe that beasts will do the same, unless we admit that the instinct of

beasts is superior to the boasted reason of man. Whether they did fight upon the present occasion without cause I cannot say, as I was not present when the affray began. A bear and a A bear and a ram have been known to fight, and so did the bear and the alligator, whilst I prudently kept in the background, preserving the strictest neutrality betwixt the belligerents.

Bruin, though evidently baffled, had a firm look, which showed he had not lost confidence in himself. If the difficulty of the undertaking had only deceived him, he was preparing to resume it. Accordingly, letting himself down upon all fours, he ran furiously at the alligator.

The alligator was ready for him, and, throwing his head and body partly round to avoid the onset, met Bruin half-way with a blow of his tail, which rolled him on the shells.

Old Bruin was not to be put off by one hint. Three times in rapid succession he rushed at the alligator, and was as often repulsed in the same manner, being knocked back by each blow just far enough to give the alligator time to recover the swing of his tail before he returned. The tail of the alligator sounded like a flail on Bruin's head and shoulders; but he bore it without flinching, still pushing on to come to close quarters with his scaly foe.

He made his fourth charge with a degree of dexterity which those who

have never seen this clumsy animal exercising would suppose him incapable of. This time he got so close to the alligator before his tail struck him that the blow came with half its usual effect.

The alligator was upset by the charge; and before he could recover his feet, Bruin grasped him round the body below the fore-legs, and holding him down on his back, seized one of his legs in his mouth.

The alligator was now in a desperate situation, notwithstanding his coat of mail, which is softer on his belly than his back, from which

"The darted steel with idle shivers flies; "

and, as Kentuck would say, "he was getting up fast."

Here, if I dared to speak, and had supposed he could understand English, I should have uttered the encouraging exhortation of the poet—

"Now, gallant knight, now hold thy own;

No maiden's arms are round thee thrown."

The alligator attempted in vain to bite. Pressed down as he was, he could not open his mouth, the upper jaw of which only moves; and his neck was so stiff he could not turn his head short round. The amphibious beast fetched a scream in despair, but was not yet entirely overcome. Writhing his tail in agony, he happened to strike it against a small tree that stood next the bank : aided by this purchase, he made a convulsive flounder, which precipitated himself and Bruin, locked together, into the river.

The bank from which they fell was four feet high, and the water below seven feet deep. The tranquil stream received the combatants with a loud splash, then closed over them in silence. A volley of ascending bubbles announced their arrival at the bottom, where the battle ended. Presently Bruin rose again, scrambled up the bank, cast a hasty glance at the river, and made off, dripping, to the cane-brake. I never saw the alligator afterwards, to know him; no doubt he escaped in the water, which he certainly would not have done had he remained a few minutes longer on land.

Bruin was forced by nature to let go his grip under water to save his own life; I therefore think he is entitled to the credit of the victory. Besides, by implied consent, the parties were bound to finish the fight on land, where it began; and so Bruin understood it.

72

THE TALE OF THE "KENT," EAST-INDIAMAN.
DESTROYED BY FIRE, IN THE BAY OF BISCAY, ON MARCH 1st, 1825.

IN Saturday, February 19th, 1825, a fresh north-easterly wind blew merrily down the Channel, driving the clouds from a steel-blue sky; and before it, her white sails bellying, her bulwarks bright with fresh paint, went the Kent, East-Indiaman, a handsome new ship of thirteen hundred and fifty tons, on her voyage to Bengal and China. As she sailed out of the Downs she carried on board a crew of one hundred and forty-eight men including officers; and twenty officers, three hundred and fortyfour soldiers, forty-three women, and sixty children belonging to the 31st Regiment, besides twenty private passengers: in all, a total of six hundred and thirty-five souls.

Ten days after, on the night of February 28th, the stately ship was in lat. 47° 30', long. 10° when a furious storm overtook her from westward. Buffeted and bewildered, she lay-to, her top-gallant yards struck, under triple-reefed main-topsail only. The gale continued and increased as the night dragged on, till with every lurch the main-chains were under water. The rolling was rendered threefold worse by the shifting weight of several hundred tons of shot and shell in the hold. A dozen or so of the sailors were just descending from the yards, where by prodigious efforts for the sails were like sheet-iron— they had just succeeded in reefing the vessel snug. The passengers were below, sea-sick and horribly frightened, the children wailing, the women. moaning in the midst of their endeavours to soothe. The three hundred and forty soldiers were huddled on deck and attached to life-lines run along the length of the vessel; among them the sailors were working hard to carry out the orders of their commander, Captain Henry Cobb, who through his speaking trumpet could hardly make his voice heard above the din of the elements.

By twelve o'clock, the pitching and rolling were at their worst. The best fastened furniture in the principal cabin was flung from side to side and smashing right and left with the most formidable violence. So it lasted till just before the dawn, when one of the ship's officers, wishing to satisfy himself that all was safe below, descended, with two sailors, into the hold. The men carried with them, for safety, a light in a patent lantern, but seeing that the candle of the lamp was burning dim, the officer took the precaution to hand it up to the orlop-deck to be trimmed. Having afterwards discovered that one of the rum-casks was adrift, he sent the sailors for some billets of wood to make it fast. While they were away, the ship gave a terrific lurch; the lantern was knocked out of the officer's hand. He let go the cask to catch

at the lantern; the cask stove, and out poured the rum. In a moment the light caught it, and the hold was in a blaze!

The spot where the fire broke out was surrounded by water-casks, and the men whom the officer called to help for some time believed that the flames would soon be drenched out. But their hopes were idle. The light blue vapour was followed by dense volumes of brown smoke, curling and heavy, stifling the men as they fought to keep the fire under, and driving them out of the hold. Now the flames ascended through all the four hatchways, and licked their way along to right and left, to quarter-deck and forecastle. The ship was doomed; there was no hope of hiding it from the passengers. And now someone cried, It has reached the cable tier!" The alarm was too surely true, as was proved by a dense smell of pitch that pervaded the ship. The fire had reached the partitions and sides of the hold.

What meanwhile was the scene above, among the frightened wretches whose ignorance could only grasp the horror, not the hope, of the catastrophe?

Major M'Gregor, who had been reading the Bible to a friend whom the storm had unduly frightened, was interrupted by the whispered news that a yet more awful foe than the tempest was upon them-an enemy against which human foresight could provide little protection "The after-hold is on fire!" He rose quietly, steadied his thoughts in an instant, and tapping at the cabin door, quietly whispered all his information to Colonel Fearon, the commanding officer on board. For the "cabin" in which he sat was a large dining-room on a level with the quarter-deck, and here most of the women were now gathered. The major looked about to see that none of these had heard the whisper. They had not. He resumed his seat and endeavoured to go on with his reading.

But they read the anxiety in his face and his restless glances towards the cabin door. Several women asked if the gale were not worse, and refused to be satisfied by his assurances. But the truth came to them presently, as the smoke crept in and grew thicker, and the planks beneath grew hot.

It was at this crisis that Captain Cobb showed himself not a hero only, but a born commander. He had been on deck directing the sailors and the men of the 31st Regiment, who, forgetting their sea-sickness and their terrors at the storm in the face of this deadlier foe, were throwing wet sails and drenching water over the fire. But as soon as it grew evident that the flames would never be quenched by such means, the captain resolved on a desperate measure, and did so with a prompt decision of character which seemed to increase with the imminence of the peril. He ordered the crew to get out their axes, scuttle the lower deck, cut the combings of the hatches, and open the lower ports for the free admission of the waves. There was one chance of saving the six hundred and thirty-five souls on board, to meet the fire with the waves and let the two battle it out.

It was an order at once merciful and cruel; for some lives must be know