ers the purposes of a flint in
striking fire from steel; its weight is from fifty to four hundred
pounds, and its appearance is hideous; it is, in fact, the shark of
rivers, but more terrible than the shark of the sea, and is considered
far more formidable than the alligator himself."

It is, in fact, a most terrible animal. I have seen it more than once
seizing its prey, and dragging it down with the rapidity of an arrow.
One day while I was residing at Captain Finn's upon the Red River, I saw
one of these monsters enter a creek of transparent water. Following him
for curiosity, I soon perceived that he had not left the deep water
without an inducement, for just above me there was an alligator
devouring an otter.

As soon as the alligator perceived his formidable enemy, he thought of
nothing but escape to the shore; he dropped his prey and began to climb,
but he was too slow for the gar fish, who, with a single dart, closed
upon it with extended jaws, and seized it by the middle of the body. I
could see plainly through the transparent water, and yet I did not
perceive that the alligator made the least struggle to escape from the
deadly fangs; there was a hissing noise as that of shells and bones
crushed, and the gar fish left the creek with his victim in his jaws, so
nearly severed in two, that the head and tail were towing on each
side of him.

Besides these, the traveller through rivers and bayous has to fear many
other enemies of less note, and but little, if at all, known to
naturalists. Among these is the mud vampire, a kind of spider leech,
with sixteen short paws round a body of the form and size of the common
plate; the centre of the animal (which is black in any other part of the
body) has a dark vermilion round spot, from which dart a quantity of
black suckers, one inch and a half long, through which they extract the
blood of animals: and so rapid is the phlebotomy of this ugly reptile,
that though not weighing more than two ounces in its natural state, a
few minutes after it is stuck on, it will increase to the size of a
beaver hat, and weigh several pounds.

Thus leeched in a large stream, a horse will often faint before he can
reach the opposite shore, and he then becomes a prey to the gar fish; if
the stream is but small and the animal is not exhausted, he will run
madly to the shore and roll to get rid of his terrible blood-sucker,
which, however, will adhere to him, till one or the other of them die