Looking quite as much like a stranded log as anything else, a full-grown alligator lay stretched out along the muddy margin of the river at the water's edge. No sooner was he seen, than the ungainly monster became the target for a perfect storm of bullets, all of which glanced as harmlessly off his scaly back as hailstones from a slate roof. Disturbed by the noise and the shouts, the hideous animal slid slowly into the water and disappeared from sight, churning up the muddy bottom as he went.
Bill put on a quizzical look as he asked Walter if he knew why some barbarians worshiped the alligator. Walter was obliged to admit that he did not. "'Cause the alligator can swaller the man, but the man can't swaller the alligator," chuckled Bill.
Now and then a native bongo would be overhauled, bound for San Carlos, Grenada, or Leon, with a cargo of European goods. They were uncouth-looking boats, rigged with mast and sail, and sometimes thirty to forty feet long. Many a hearty laugh greeted the grotesque motions of the jet-black rowers, who half rose from their seats every time they dipped their oars, and then sank back with a grunt to give their strokes more power. The patrón, or master, prefaced all his orders with a persuasive "Now, gentlemen, a little faster, if you please!"
"And so that's the way, is it, that all inland transportation has been carried on here for so many hundred years?" thought Walter. "Well, I never!"
Incidents such as these served, now and then, to cause a ripple of excitement, or until even alligators became quite too numerous to waste powder upon. As darkness was coming on fast, there being no twilight to speak of in this part of the world, a ship's yawl was seen tied up under the bank for the night. Its occupants were nowhere in sight, but the dim light of a fire among the bushes showed that they were not far off. "Runaway sailors," Bill explained; "stole the boat, an' 'fraid to show themselves. Poor devils! they've a long pull afore 'em ef they get away, an' a rope's-end behind 'em if they're caught."
"Why, how far is it across?"
"It's more'n a hundred miles to the lake, and another hundred or so beyond."
"Whew! you don't say. Well, I pity them."
When darkness had shut down, the steamers also were tied up to trees on the bank, scope enough being given to the line to let the boats swing clear of the shores, on account of the mosquitoes, with which the woods were fairly alive. In this solitude the travelers passed their first night, without other shelter than the heavens above, and long before it was over there was good reason to repent of the abuse heaped upon the Prometheus, since very few got a wink of sleep; while all were more or less soaked by the rain that fell in torrents, as it can rain only in the tropics, during the night. As cold, wet, and gloomy as it dawned, the return of day was hailed with delight by the shivering and disconsolate travelers. In truth, much of the gilding had already been washed off, or worn off, of their El Dorado. And, as Bill bluntly put it, they all looked "like a passel of drownded rats."
Bill made this remark while he and Walter were washing their hands and faces in the roily river water, an easy matter, as they had only to stoop over the side to do so, the boat's deck being hardly a foot out of water. Suddenly Walter caught Bill's arm and gave it a warning squeeze. Bill followed the direction in which Walter was looking, and gave a low whistle. A beautifully mottled black-and-white snake had coiled itself around the line by which the boat was tied to the shore, and was quietly working its way, in corkscrew fashion, toward the now motionless craft. Seizing a boat-hook, Bill aimed a savage blow at the reptile, but the rope only being struck, the snake dropped unharmed into the river.