CKOCODILE SHOOTING. 281 



games of hide-and-seek played up and down these 

 byways between the Chinese boats that carried the 

 tin of the alluvial fields of Larut and the pirate 

 prahus of the Malays. 



The channels vary in width from a hundred to 

 three hundred yards : at high tide one sees nothing 

 on either bank but the mangrove-trees growing out 

 of the water and occasional patches of nipah palms. 

 At low tide the mangroves are left high and dry 

 above the expanse of a slimy foreshore of evil- 

 smelling mud. One notices that a line, that might 

 have been drawn with a ruler, runs along the foot 

 of the row of mangroves, and marks the high-water 

 limit below which the leaves of the trees cannot live. 



Above this line all is green, below it there is 

 nothing but bare trunk. On the mud the croco- 

 diles that infest the channels come out to bask 

 when the tide is low. 



Some months ago my tracker Manap and I were 

 in the mangrove swamps of Larut trying to shoot 

 a tiger that had been taking off the Chinese wood- 

 cutters on the coast. As we were returning to 

 my launch at sunrise, after one of many fruitless 

 night-long vigils in a mosquito-infested forest, it 

 occurred to me to take advantage of the low tide 

 and to paddle along the banks of the backwaters 

 and inlets of the mangrove forest in order to pick 

 up a crocodile or two. We left the launch to follow 

 us at a discreet distance, and set off in a little 

 dug-out canoe. The tide was running out fast, and 

 long stretches of bare mud were exposed. 



In the distance these flat expanses glistened in the 



