The red book of animal stories/Crocodile Stories

CROCODILE STORIES

The rivers that flow into the Nile are the homes of other dangerous creatures besides hippopotami, and though crocodiles do not attack boats, like their larger neighbours, they are even more to be dreaded by men. They are huge beasts, often twenty feet in length, with great scaly bodies and flat heads, which are furnished with long, terrible teeth.

In proportion to their size they are immensely strong, and even quite a little one has often been known to overpower a man when in the water. He then carries his victim to some favourite haunt and eats him bit by bit.

Now, none of the crocodiles which infest the Nile and its tributaries are bigger or fiercer than those in the district of Gondokoro, where Sir Samuel Baker lay for some time encamped. The natives, who swim like fishes, were constantly in the habit of taking their cattle to pasture across the stream in the morning and bringing them back at night, and it was seldom, indeed, that the passage was made—at the risk of their own lives—without the loss of one of the beasts. Nothing, however, could break them of the habit, not even the fact that two sailors had been carried off in two days, while a soldier, who was working with some other men in shallow water, was seized below his knee. He struggled fiercely, assisted by his friends, and tried to blind the creature; but his leg was so crushed by his enemy's teeth that it was absolutely necessary that it should be cut off.

It was really quite dangerous to go near the river at all, for you never knew when a crocodile might be lurking near. One day several sailors went down to the bank to gather the leaves of a pretty, pink, floating convolvulus, which, when chopped up, made a very good imitation of spinach, and was much relished for dinner. The roots were fast in the mud, but the leaves spread about like water-lilies, and had to be drawn in by their stems. One of the sailors was reaching out as far as he could stretch after a particularly fine young leaf, when a crocodile darted out and seized him by the elbow. The pain was frightful, and the man would at once have fallen helplessly into the river had not his comrades instantly flung their arms round his waist and held him back. Then began a fearful tug-of-war. Neither party would let go, till at last the elbow joint itself gave way. The crocodile went off triumphantly with the hand and forearm, and the sailor was carried off to be doctored in the camp.

This was bad enough, but sometimes worse happened. It was no uncommon thing, if one person was out alone on any errand that took him near the river, for nothing more ever to be heard of him. If a woman was washing at the hank in the shallow water, her legs might be seized, and she would be dragged underneath before anyone in the boat moored close by knew what had occurred. This once actually happened to a negro girl; and how she had met her end was afterwards proved in a ghastly manner.

Life was made such a terror by the constant and often unseen presence of these crocodiles, that Baker lost no opportunity of killing all he could with a small rifle, called 'the Dutchman,' kept solely for this purpose. It was so very accurate in its aim, that at a hundred yards it was possible to hit a crocodile which was lying on a sandbank in the two places where death was immediate, behind the eye, or through the shoulder; often the creature never even stirred, but lay dead in its place.

Baker had one day been out on some business, and was riding back to his own quarters further up the river, when he saw a large crocodile lying out in the stream, with its head above water. In order not to be observed before he could get near enough to aim, Baker dismounted, and crept softly away from the bank, which he then struck a little lower down, where a clump of rushes would conceal him from view. Almost crawling along the ground, he reached the spot, about four feet above the river, and took careful aim behind the crocodile's eye. The animal gave a start, and turned over on its back, where it lay without moving, with its legs above the water, which there was only two feet deep. Baker, of course, thought it was dead, and taking the rope which he always carried on his horse, told two of his men to go into the water and tie it up securely. While this was being done, a third man was sent off on horseback to the camp to bring back help, for long experience had taught them that, though a crocodile may really be shot through the brain, the muscular movements, both of legs and tail, will gradually cause it to slide from the bank back into deep water.

The men did as they were bid without shrinking, for they, too, had seen the fatal shot, when suddenly the scaly tail began to move. Trembling with fear, they cried out that the animal was still alive; but Baker told them it was all nonsense, and bade them be quick and finish what they were at. The men being on the spot, however, knew much better than their master on the bank, and the crocodile's struggles soon got so strong that they could hardly hold it. All at once it gave a great yawn, and, had it not been for dread of punishment, they would have dropped the rope in a fright and left the animal to its fate. Another bullet in the shoulder checked its struggles, and by this time the men galloped back with more ropes. Even now its strength was by no means exhausted, and it did not submit easily to its fate; but at last it was safely landed on the bank, and a sharp blow with an axe divided its spine.

When the crocodile was found to be dead without a doubt, its stomach was opened. Among other things, too horrid to mention, there were found, inside, two armlets and a necklace that had probably belonged to the

FINDING THE NECKLACE

negro girl who had disappeared so completely while washing in the river.

Further south still, beyond the great lakes, is the River Zambesi, whose branches swarm with alligators, a kind of crocodile, and quite as dangerous.

Fifty years ago, when Livingstone was travelling up one of these rivers, the Leeambye, which falls into the Zambesi, he came to a whole district where the children were constantly being snapped up by these frightful creatures, when they went to play on the edge of the stream. A blow from the tail of an alligator would knock down a child or a calf that had come to drink, and then the great flat head would be thrust out of the water, and the victim was pulled in without any chance of escape. One day, a man in Livingstone's caravan was swimming across one of these rivers, when an alligator caught hold of his thigh, and dragged him below, but not before he had managed to get out a knife he carried with him; and as he sank he stabbed the alligator in the shoulder. Smarting with the pain, the alligator loosened his hold, and the man came up to the surface, not very much the worse, but with marks on his thigh that he never got rid of. Luckily for him, his tribe had no superstitions about bitten people; but in some of the other places visited by Livingstone, any man who has received a bite from an alligator, or has been splashed by his tail, is considered unclean, and chased out from his fellows. They think that merely to look at the wound would cause a disease of the eyes. If the bite happens to be caused by a zebra, the sufferer is not only obliged to fly himself, but to take his wife and family into the desert. The Barotse tribe have no objection to eating alligators, which most people would find very 'strong' meat; and Livingstone tells that one of them complained to him of an alligator carrying below a wounded antelope which had taken to the water. 'I called to it to let my meat alone,' said Mashuana, 'but it would not listen.' So, in revenge, Mashuana speared another alligator, and ate it himself.