312 THE CROCODILE. 



disdain to prey on human beings, as travelers often have had occasion to 

 observe. A sportsman and natiiraHst with his caravan was recently on his 

 way back to the Coast after a successful expedition in British East Africa, 

 when one of his blacks, who had drunk too freely of the sweet palm.-wine, fell 

 from the small bridge leading across a river. The current carried him off 

 before they could go to his aid and save him from the jaws of a crocodile, 

 which in a moment had dragged him down. 



An inexperienced observer may easily be deceived as to the number of 

 crocodiles in a river. They swim along below the surface almost completely 

 hidden from sight, only from time to time they raise their nostrils above 

 the water. When they lie on sand-banks or on the river-shore or on over- 

 hanging branches of trees, they disappear as quick as lightning into the 

 water at the slightest sign of danger. They are least shy in the great lakes. 

 Many of them are found in the bogs and inlets of the Victoria Nyanza 

 living rather amicably with the river-hogs and the native fishermen. It 

 appears to the traveler like a picture of paradise to see the reed floats of 

 the natives moving about on the waters peopled by hundreds of reptiles, 

 river-hogs, and birds of all kinds. 



It certainly was a picturesque sight that met the eyes of our ex-President 

 when he crossed this beautiful lake among all these marvelous representatives 

 of the animal kingdom of the tropics. In the middle of December the 

 American hunting and scientific expedition crossed the Victoria Nyanza on 

 board the steamer Clement Hill bound for Entebbe, the seat of the English 

 governor of Uganda. 



The voyage was a delightful one and the steamer flew the United States 

 flag. It was the first time that the stars and stripes had flown over a passen- 

 ger vessel on the Victoria Nyanza. The Colonel expressed himself sur- 

 prised at the beauty of the lake and the comfort provided for the steamer's 

 passengers. Our illustration shows the only outlet of beautiful Victoria 

 Nyanza, the headwaters of the Nile, the source of Egypt's life and fertility, 

 which right from under the Equator darts on its course of thousands of 

 miles through ravines, swamps and desert to quench the thirst of millions of 

 people and beasts of the wilds. 



The crossing of the Victoria Nyanza marks the second stage of the 

 journey in the interior of Africa. With the passage of the lake the Colonel 

 left behind him British East Africa and entered the Uganda protectorate, 

 the wildest and most beautiful, perhaps the most dangerous, and certainly 

 the most interesting field of his explorations. 



