THE

ROVER.

THE ALLIGATOR AND DEAD ELEPHANT.

seen collecting from all quarters, waiting their turn to share in the casualty of a full banquet.

gator,

'the waste,'

istation on the coattendant was dethat we might see plosion among the lley. This he imrom the alligator's iant, when a scene description. The tart into life. The cared from its prey 'ere floating on the a speedy meal, as -the yelling of the ultures, made alto- to escape from the osity to revisit the eturn to our tents, se elephant entirely keleton remaining. as if they had been urgeon, and preparm. This operation ants, which swarm elinquished by the leave the fleshless ished by the efforts

THE

ROVER.

THE ALLIGATOR AND DEAD ELEPHANT.

WITH AN ENGRAVING.

THE engraving in this week's ROVER is one of those remarkable East India scenes given the Orieutal Annual in 1834. It is froman original drawing, by the celebrated artist, William Daniell, and is of course true to nature and to life. The scene is very picturesque and striking. The plate, which we use, is the original one engraved in London expressly for the Oriental Annual, and, we need not add, is a very beautiful work of art. The best illustration we can give with the plate, is to copy from the Annual itself the description of the scene written by the Rev. Hobart Caunter, one of the party

who witnessed it. His narrative is as follows:

•

'At once the king and savage of the waste,' was busy at his work of hungry devastation on the colossal body of the elephant, a native attendant was desired to advance and fire, in order that we might see what would be the effect of the explosion among the ravenous visitors to this gloomy valley. This he immediately did. The ball glanced from the alligator's body as if it had been cased in adamant, when a scene of confusion ensued which defies description. The whole valley seemed at once to start into life. The rush of the monster thus suddenly scared from its prey surface of the lake in expectation of a speedy meal, as -the splashings of those which were floating on the they plunged beneath its still waters-the yelling of the jackals, and the screaming of the vultures, made altogether such a din, that we were glad to escape from the fr ghtful uproar. We had the curiosity to revisit the spot after our day's sport, on our return to our tents, when we found the large body of the elephant entirely consumed, with nothing but the skeleton remaining.

BY SEBA SMITH.

"We had taken our guns and sauntered into the jungle, accompanied by several armed natives, in order to try if we could not furnish our table with some of the excellent wild fowl with which the woods and marshes abound. We had not proceeded far before we entered a large open space in the forest, in the centre of which was a sheet of water of considerable extent, filled, as we could perceive, with alligators of enormous size. The lake, although penetrating far into the jun-The bones were picked as clean as if they had been gle, was rather narrow, but extremely deep. From its under the hands of a most skillful surgeon, and preparbanks, on either side, a great number of large forest-ed by him for some national museum. This operation trees, which were distinctly reflected in its dark and had been completed by the black ants, which swarm placid bosom, cast their broad shadows upon its waupon a carcass after it has been relinquished by the ters; while the sun, darting its vivid rays through the more voracious beasts of prey, and leave the fleshless close foliage that nearly intercepted them, threw here frame as white as if it had been polished by the efforts and there small masses of golden light, which gave a of human ingenuity." solemn but relieved interest to the natural gloom of the picture. Near the head of the lake was the carcass of a dead elephant, upon which a large alligator was making his meal, while others of less magnitude were eagerly awaiting his departure that they might succeed him, when he should have received his sufficiency, and likewise enjoy the luxury of a feast. The As Mr. Seth Woodsum was mowing one morning natural solitariness and asperity of the spot, the immo- in his lower haying field, and his eldest son, Obediah, bility and murkiness of the lake, the extreme dense-a smart boy of thirteen, was opening the mown grass ness of the foliage, together with the almost cavernous to the sun, Mr. Woodsum looked up toward his house, gloom which such a concurrence of causes produced, and beheld his little daughter Harriet, ten years of age, were seen in awful contrast with the several varieties running up toward him with her utmost speed. As she of living objects that met the sight upon entering this came up, he perceived she was greatly agitated; tears Bequestered glade. There was indeed a stirring acti- were running down her cheeks, and she had scarcely vity in the very haunt of solitude; and what is strange, breath enough left to speak. the feeling of intense solitariness was only the more strongly awakened by the presence of this activity, as the mind instantly felt that it could only be witnessed far from the abodes of men. The mental associations Mr. Woodsum was a man of sober, sound mind, excited by the scene before us, were anything but and calm nerves; but he had what sometimes happens pleasing, as we here read in one of Nature's most me-in this cold and loveless world of ours, a tender attachlancholy pages, the sad lesson of animal selfishness ment for his wife, which made the message of the lit-. and ferocity. How does the former run through all the girl fall upon his heart like a dagger. He dropped the countless gradations of human feeling! In the ra his scythe, and ran with great haste to the house. Obetional creature it is the master-spring of motives, in-diah, who was at the other end of the field, seeing this tents, and actions, and exists as strongly as in the ir-unusual movement of his father, dropped his fork, and rational; in the latter, it is only the more obvious, be ran with all his might, and the two entered the house cause it is the less disguised. These reflections passed almost at the same time. rapidly through my thoughts as I gazed upon the living things which swarmed in and about the dark lake on whose banks the elephant had breathed his last. Various beasts and birds of prey-jackals, adjutants, vultures, kites, and reptiles of different kinds, were VOL. II.-No. 16.

"Oh, father," she faintly articulated, "mother is dreadful sick; she's on the bed, and says she shall die before you get there."

Mr. Woodsum hastened to the bed-side, and took his wife's hand. "My dear Sally," said he, "what is the matter?"

CURE OF A HYPOCHONDRIAC.

"What is the matter?" echoed Mrs. Woodsum, with a plaintive groan. "I shouldn't think you would need