284 CROCODILE STORIES 



Zambesi, he came to a whole district where the children 

 were constantly being snapped up by these frightful 

 creatures, when they went to play on the edge of the 

 stream. A blow from the tail of an alligator w r ould 

 knock down a child or a calf that had come to drink, and 

 then the great flat head would be thrust out of the water, 

 and the victim was pulled in without any chance of 

 escape. One day, a man in Livingstone's caravan was 

 swimming across one of these rivers, when an alligator 

 caught hold of his thigh, and dragged him below, but 

 not before he had managed to get out a knife he 

 carried with him ; and as he sank he stabbed the alli- 

 gator in the shoulder. Smarting with the pain, the alli- 

 gator loosened his hold, and the man came up to the 

 surface, not very much the worse, but with marks on 

 his thigh that he never got rid of. Luckily for him, 

 his tribe had no superstitions about bitten people ; but 

 in some of the other places visited by Livingstone, 

 any man who has received a bite from an alligator, or 

 has been splashed by his tail, is considered unclean, 

 and chased out from his fellows. They think that 

 merely to look at the wound would cause a disease of 

 the eyes. If the bite happens to be caused by a zebra, the 

 sufferer is not only obliged to fly himself, but to take his 

 wife and family into the desert. The Barotse tribe have 

 no objection to eating alligators, which most people- 

 would find very ' strong ' meat ; and Livingstone tells 

 that one of them complained to him of an alligator 

 carrying below a wounded antelope which had taken 

 to the water. ' I called to it to let my meat alone,' said 

 Mashuana, ' but it would not listen.' So, in revenge, 

 Mashuana speared another alligator, and ate it himself. 



