A correspondent writes: "There is a deep pool near Kalmunai, in the Batticaloa district of Ceylon, famed for its alligators, so much so in fact that a friend and I shot eighteen there in the course of a week without apparently diminishing the number.
"There was one enormous brute that had the reputation of having devoured four natives, and cattle without end. The villagers begged us to shoot him, and for some time we watched for him, and often saw him as he came up to breathe; but so cunning was he that the instant he saw either of us raise a rifle, down he would sink, with scarcely a ripple to mark the place of his disappearance.
"Now this pool swarmed with fish, but the dread of the alligators kept the natives from netting them; at length, however, emboldened by our presence, three men paddled in from the stream and began operations. At first they kept close to the bridge, but growing bolder they moved up to some reeds which bade fair to reward their boldness, when all of a sudden, splash! up went the canoe; and but for the outrigger it would have capsized, men and all.
"They had run upon the alligator, which was lying on a sand-bank just below the surface. The yells of the lookers-on and the smack with which the brute's tail struck the canoe showed how narrow an escape the men had had. However, this was my opportunity, and a moment afterward I had the satisfaction of killing the alligator with a bullet in the brain."
[Begun in No. 46 of Harper's Young People, September 14.]
WHO WAS PAUL GRAYSON?
BY JOHN HABBERTON,
Author of "Helen's Babies."