THE RAINY SEASON 



Opposite my house, the same year, besides this 

 young girl, a child fishing on the other bank was 

 seized by a crocodile and badly wounded, and owed its 

 safety solely to the presence of a number of negroes, 

 by whom it was rescued. At Bue-Maria the Kafir 

 entrusted with the care of the plantations of the 

 Gorongoza Company, when seized by a crocodile, 

 struggled courageously with it till someone came to 

 his assistance ; he was badly wounded. At Macurie, 

 the principal station of the company, a child was 

 carried off. The parents found it drowned and con- 

 cealed among the reeds by the side of the bank. The 

 crocodile was killed upon the corpse. On the Urema, 

 a tributary of the Pungwe, a man, seized by the 

 stomach received horrible wounds, to which he 

 succumbed a few days afterwards. 



I devote myself to a very serious statistical investi- 

 gation, and arrive at the conclusion that five per cent, 

 of the mortality ought to be attributed to crocodiles. 

 The cripples made by them are legion. If we consider 

 the rapidity with which these hideous monsters 

 reproduce their kind, it will be evident that they con- 

 stitute a veritable danger. I much wish that an 

 international convention would offer a big reward, 

 to be given to the savant who should discover a 

 practical means of destroying these terrible saurians. 

 I was busily engaged in attending to the sick child, 

 when I received a deputation of negroes from some 

 villages situated on the other bank of the Pungwe. 



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