CROCODILES. 19 



tusks also, about forty pounds weight each, sufficient 

 reward for a day's work, which had neither been 

 very exciting nor particularly dangerous. 



From the recoil of my rifle, my shoulder had 

 become so fearfully contused that I resolved to 

 remain about camp, an example that was not slow 

 in being followed by my chums. Gun cleaning 

 and other home work occupied the forenoon, but 

 when that was over it was determined unanimously 

 to inspect a dead hippopotamus. What a scene 

 there was around the remains of the carcass ! On 

 the land were hundreds of carrion-feeding birds, 

 waiting for a chance to make a meal ; in the water 

 the heads of at least a dozen large crocodiles showed 

 themselves, while one giant saurian, resting on his 

 hind-legs, and clasping the dead body with his fore- 

 paws, was tearing off immense pieces of flesh, which 

 appeared to find a difficult passage into its capacious 

 maw. We were within fifteen paces of this disgust- 

 ing, loathsome brute before it became aware of our 

 presence, and then it only raised its head, as if to 

 inquire who were the intruders. That movement 

 was its death warrant, for Dillon placed a bullet 

 from his smooth-bore into its brain through the eye. 

 Death appeared to be instantaneous, for it rolled 

 over into the water without a struggle, and doubt- 

 lessly afterwards became food for some of its own 

 species. It is a pity we could not have measured 

 this specimen ; it looked to me fully twenty feet long. 



c 2 



