PORTUGUESE EAST AFRICA (SOUTH) 87 
was taken soon after my arrival. As with lions, such trouble is 
usually attributable to a few individual animals which become 
very cunning. The extraordinary thing, to a European, is the 
fatalistic manner in which natives accept these tragedies, but this 
is explained by the fact that when a man dies in the ordinary way 
his spirit is supposed to enter a crocodile, so it is not surprising 
that this animal is held sacred. The spirit it harbors controls the 
destiny of near relations, and so when a tragedy occurs it is con- 
sidered to be the will of a departed ancestor. 
One day I took my boy along the backwaters of the Umbeluzi 
trying to fish out some water-lily seeds which I required as food 
for some of my aquatic birds. After making slow progress with a 
long bamboo pole he calmly walked into the water up to his neck, 
and gathered all the pods I required, in spite of having lost his 
brother a short while before. 
The long seasonal dry weather was broken by a storm, after 
which rain was plentiful. I awakened one morning to find that 
the Umbeluzi had overflowed its banks. The house I lived in over- 
looked a low-lying plain some six miles by three, all of which was 
now inundated and converted into a large shallow lake. As if by 
magic hundreds of waterfowl, herons and waders, etc., appeared 
on the scene overnight, and were busily engaged in mopping up 
the myriads of floating insects, mainly grasshoppers, that nature 
had so generously trapped. Every patch of floating vegetation, and 
even the smallest lump of debris, supported masses of ants, grass- 
hoppers and other insects caught by the rapid flooding of such a 
large area. Small rodents were also much in evidence, some 
drowned and others clinging desperately to any floating material 
that offered support, but all doomed sooner or later to be devoured 
by the army of birds. It would be interesting to know what in- 
duces such a variety of bird-life from distant places to converge 
simultaneously overnight on a given point knowing that a sudden 
flood has arisen and that this will produce masses of trapped in- 
sects and other animal-life, whereas a permanent sheet of water 
in the same district will offer very little by comparison. 
The scene from the adjacent hillside was breathtaking. The 
water glistening in the powerful sunlight was studded with 
Pygmy Geese, White-faced Tree Duck, and White-backed Duck 
