2S0 



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. 



