Crocodiles 



armpits, to reflect that at any moment one of the 

 party may join " the great majority " in such a 

 gruesome manner. 



I went down the Calabar River one day with 

 the superintendent of marines, Captain Child, 

 in an Accra canoe cut from a solid log, a very 

 narrow craft, and long. Our crew consisted of 

 eight small boys, with a still younger steersman. 

 They knelt on the floor boards when paddling, 

 and made the canoe fairly fly. Child and I were 

 seated on cushions in the stern, our rifles beside 

 us, for we were out to look for crocodiles that 

 come to bask in the sun on the sand-banks. 

 Child had located, when coming up-river in a 

 launch one day, a huge brute on a sand-bank 

 some five miles from Calabar, and it was this 

 particular beast we were anxious to get. 



Arriving in the neighbourhood of the place, 

 the boys paddled as softly as possible. There 

 our quarry was, an old and very wary specimen 

 of his tribe, and he slid off the bank before we 

 were anything like near enough for a shot. 



Landing on the sand-spit to look at the trail 

 made by this monster, we found the huge 

 imprints of his fore and hind feet, and the deep 

 furrow formed in the sand where he had ploughed 

 his way to the water. From the marks left he 

 must have measured quite eighteen feet long. 



We decided to lie in wait under cover of some 

 mangrove bushes that grew on an island within 



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