AND LOWER EGYPT. 259 



Very alert in the water, which they cut with ra- 

 pidity, they make but slow progress on dry land ; 

 and were it not that their slime colour, and the bed 

 of mud with which they cover themselves in walk- 

 ing along the miry shores of the Nile, disguise 

 them so as to render them less perceptible, and thus 

 expose you to be surprised by them ; they are by 

 no means so dangerous out of the watery element, 

 in which they are stronger and more at liberty. 



It is upon the muddy coast of the Nile that they 

 deposit their eggs; it is there also that they copu- 

 late. The female, which in the act of copulation 

 is laid on her back, has much difficulty in rising 

 again ; it is even said, that she can neither change 

 her position nor turn without the assistance of the 

 male. Will it be believed, that in Upper Egypt 

 there are men to be found, who, hurried on by the 

 excessof an unexampled depravation and bestiality, 

 take advantage of this forced situation of the female 

 crocodile, hunt away the male, and replace him in 

 a commerce that shocks humanity ? Horrible em- 

 braces, frightful enjoyments, the kn6wledge of 

 which should never have stained the disgusting 

 pages of the history of human perversity 1 



The fecundity of the crocodile would prove a ter- 

 rible scourge to the country which it inhabits, did 

 not numerous enemies, among which the tortoise of 



s 2 the 



