286 IN MALAY FORESTS. 



not a ripple anywhere to show the place where it 

 had been. 



A couple of hundred yards farther on we marked 

 a crocodile stretched in sleep on the mud. At this 

 distance it was peculiarly inconspicuous, despite the 

 serrated outline of its back and tail. Branches of 

 trees, nipah palm-leaves, with wreckage and detritus 

 of all sorts, are always scattered about the mud-flats, 

 and it is difficult to say whether they or the crocodile 

 succeed the better in their mimicry of one another. 

 Time after time the broad back and jagged fronds of 

 a nipah leaf will make one tighten the grasp on the 

 rifle, and I well remember that the first time an 

 excited Malay pointed out a crocodile to me I could 

 see nothing but an old log. We drifted slowly 

 towards the sleeping crocodile, and though it is not, 

 I admit, a high form of sport, still it was exciting, 

 for one could not tell when the animal would wake. 

 It might only be half asleep, or not even asleep 

 at all, and might at any moment make a dash for 

 the water. When a crocodile does awake to realise 

 its danger, there is such a rush and such a swirl, and 

 the flying mud is so much the colour of the animal, 

 that to put a bullet through its heart or head cannot 

 but be more a matter of luck than skill. Every yard 

 that brings the boat closer to the animal of course 

 increases the danger of its waking ; and added to the 

 thrill of the lessening distance is the difficulty of 

 deciding whether to take one's shot while yet one 

 may or whether to try and get a little closer, and 

 thus, if the animal does not first take alarm, make 

 certain of it. Slowly and silently we drifted on until 



