The men now peeped at it and all agreed that it was an alligator.

I therefore retreated to a respectful and suitable distance and let fly at it with a rifle; it gave, as we thought, a kind of shake, and then took no further notice of us.

I therefore took a double-barrelled gun from one of the men and drove two balls through the beast, and now feeling sure it must be dead (for it never moved) I walked up to it, when, upon examination, it turned out to be a huge shark, of a totally new species, which had been left in some hole by the tide where the natives had found and killed it, and, being disturbed by our approach, had run away, first hiding it in this clump of reeds.

There were two natives and they had made off right up the bed of the river, taking the precaution to step in one another's tracks so as to conceal if possible their number.
CHARACTER OF THE RIVER.
To those who have never seen a river similar to the one we were now upon it is difficult to convey a true idea of its character.

It consisted of several channels or beds divided from each other by long strips of land, which, in times of flood, become islands; the main channel had an average breadth of about two hundred and seventy yards; the average height of the bank at the edge of it was about fifteen feet, and the bed of the river was composed of porous red sand apparently incapable of containing water unless when previously saturated with it.