The Chance of Meeting an Alligator

Excerpt from the 1912 Okefenokee journal of Dr. W.D. Funkhouser:

“We five started in alone, carrying 50 pound packs, with a compass as our guide. The water was from waist to shoulder deep, full of giant cypress trees, and so closely overgrown with underbrush and entangling vines that we literally had to cut our way with axes every step, and could only advance a mile a day.

“Sometimes we would come to a big gator tunnel through the underbrush, where a large alligator had crushed his way through and we would crawl through it to save some cutting. The difficulties were that the sides were usually supplied with wasp nest’s, and there was always the chance of meeting the alligator coming back.”

iNaturalist observation: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/33041408