a grunt of surprise and, looking towards the river, 

 called out sharply, " What is it ? " 



One of the herd boys was coming at a trot towards 

 us, and the drivers, thinking something had happened 

 to the oxen, called a question to him. He did not 

 answer until he reached them and even then spoke 

 in so quiet a tone that I could not catch what he 

 said. But Jim, putting down the kettle, ran to his 

 waggon and grabbing his sticks and assegais called to 

 me in a husky shouting whisper which imperfectly 

 describes Jim's way of relieving his feelings, without 

 making the whole world echo : " Ingwenye, Inkos ! 

 Ingwenye Umkulu ! Big Clocodile ! Groot Krokodil, 

 Baas ! " 



Then abandoning his excited polyglot he gabbled 

 off in pure Zulu and at incredible speed a long account 

 of the big Crocodile : it had carried off four boys 

 going to the gold-fields that year ; it had taken a 

 woman and a baby from the kraal near by, but a white 

 man had beaten it off with a bucket ; it had taken all 

 the dogs, and even calves and goats, at the drinking 

 place ; and goodness knows how much more. How Jim 

 got his news, and when he made his friends, were puzzles 

 never solved. 



Hunting stories, like travellers tales, are proverbially 

 dangerous to reputations, however literally true they 

 may be ; and this is necessarily so, partly because only 

 exceptional things are worth telling, and partly because 

 the conditions of the country or the life referred to 

 are unfamiliar and cannot be grasped. It is a depress- 

 ing but accepted fact that the ideal, lurid and, I 



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