Being alone that day I had no intention of having 

 a swim or of going into the open river, and I took a 

 little trouble to pick a suitable pool with a rock on 

 which to stand and dress. The water was clear and 

 I could see the bottom of the pool. It was quite 

 shallow three feet deep at most made by a scour 

 in the sandy bed and divided from the main stream 

 by a narrow spit of sand a couple of yards wide and 

 twenty long. At the top end of the sand spit was a 

 flat rock my dressing table. 



After a dip in the pool I stood on to the sand spit 

 to scrub off the brown dust, keeping one unsoaped eye 

 roving round for intrusive crocodiles, and the loaded 

 rifle lying beside me. The brutes slide out so silently 

 and unexpectedly that in that exposed position, with 

 water all round, one could not afford to turn one's 

 back on any quarter for long. There is something 

 laughable it seemed faintly humorous even then 

 in the idea of a naked man hastily washing soap out 

 of his eyes and squeezing away the water to take a 

 hurried look behind him, and then after careful survey, 

 doing an ' altogether ' dowse just as hastily blowing 

 and spluttering all the time like a boy after his first 

 dive. 



The bath was successful and ended without incident 

 not a sign of a crocodile the whole time ! Breakfast 

 was ready when I reached the waggons, and feeling 

 very fit and clean in a fresh flannel shirt and white 

 moleskins, I sat down to it. Jim Makokel' brought the 

 kettle of coffee from the fire and was in the act of 

 pouring some into a big mug when he stopped with 



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