A favorite passage from William Bartram’s Travels, published in 1791.
“I have seen an alligator take up out of the water several great fish at a time, and just squeeze them betwixt his jaws, while the tails of the great trout flapped about his eyes and lips, ere he had swallowed them. The horrid noise of their closing jaws, their plunging amidst the broken banks of fish, and rising with their prey some feet upright above the water, the floods of water and blood rushing out of their mouths, and the clouds of vapour issuing from their wide nostrils, were truly frightful. This scene continued at intervals during the night, as the fish came to the pass.” – Part II, Chapter V
William Bartram was a botantist, artist, and nature writer that explored the southeastern United States around the time of the American Revolution (1773-1776). He was a scientist, creationist and Christian that gave glory to the Author for all the wonderful works he observed and documented in his book, Travels Through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida.
- Bartram, William, and Thomas Slaughter. William Bartram: Travels and Other Writings. Library of America, 1996.
iNaturalist observation: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/33042501
Okefenokee Photography Project by William Wise 