QUIET WATERS 87 



silent, for this is the first hot day of the season, and 

 they have retired to the patches of jungle where shade 

 and dimness afford relief from the sunlight spaces. For 

 many a mile a cormorant, lacking valour to double on 

 its tracks, has fled before the boat, setthng out of sight 

 ever and anon, only to be scared further from its nest. 

 A mangrove bittern sitting humpbacked on a root and 

 roused from its night thoughts has flown ahead, follow- 

 ing the bends of the stream until it crossed a familiar 

 loop and so evaded incessant harrjdng. 



No murmur of the sea is audible, though the water 

 is as briny as at the mouth. Mangroves still reinforce 

 the muddy banks at intervals, and big barramundi 

 swirl aside to give the boat precedence in the narrow 

 wa}^ If in no impetuous haste, one might drift with 

 the tide up and down with but little exertion except 

 during periods of flood, which quickly rise and quickly 

 subside. Drifters become familiar with characteristics 

 of the stream unknown to those who hurry up and down 

 in an echo-rousing motor-boat. They see crocodiles 

 basking on their sides, as many as seven on a sunny 

 morning in the cool season, and many curse them in De 

 Quincey's phrase as "miscreated gigantic vermin" 

 because the rifle happens to be unavailable. Crocodiles 

 have their moods. Sometimes they are lazy and in- 

 different and will not be disturbed though the boat may 

 cUnk and chatter as it passes, and the then easy-going 

 man disposes of them. More often the faculties of the 

 crocodile are disappointingly acute. He is visible for 

 such a fragment of time that the authoritative man who 

 has promised sport looks foolish and tries to relieve the 

 strain by the relation of anecdotes in which circumstances 

 have not been all in favour of the illusive creature. He 

 tells of the slumbering one which lay on a mud-bank 

 with its jaws distended, weary of the monotony of the 



