THE CROCODILE OF THE MLE. 337 



creature of prodigious size, suddenly emerged with an appalling 

 roar, making desperate efforts to reach her wriggling and 

 screeching offspring, and increasing in rage every time 

 Schomburgk tantalised her by holding it out to her. Having 

 been wounded with an arrow, she retired for a few moments, 

 and then again returned with redoubled fury, lashing the waters 

 into foam by the repeated strokes of her tail. Schomburgk 

 now cautiously retreated, as in case of a fall into the water 

 below, he would have had but little reason to expect a friendly 

 reception, the monster pertinaciously following him to the 

 bank, but not deeming it advisable to land, as here it seemed 

 to feel its helplessness. The scales of the captured young one 

 were quite soft and pliable, as it was only a few days old, but it 

 already had the peculiar musk-like smell which characterises 

 the full-grown reptile. 



The sight of the first crocodile he meets with, lying on a flat 

 sand-bank of the Nile, is a great event in the traveller's life in 

 Egypt. With all the eagerness of curiosity he first seizes his 

 telescope to have a look at the monster, and then his gun, to 

 drive, if possible, a bullet through its harnessed skin. But long 

 before the enemy approaches, the wary reptile creeps slowly 

 into the river, and plunging into the water, mocks all further 

 pursuit. If the sportsman wishes to become better acquainted 

 with the leviathan, he must wander farther to the South. The 

 thousands of crocodile mummies piled up in the pits of Mon- 

 faloot, prove that in ancient times the dreaded reptile must have 

 been common in the land of the Pharaohs ; at present this can 

 only be affirmed of the Sudan, where one may reckon with cer- 

 tainty upon finding a crocodile upon every sand-bank of the two 

 Niles. The favourite resorts of the crocodile are quiet places 

 in the rivers, where it can bask undisturbed in the sun ; the 

 cataracts it seems are not to its taste. It is no lover of 

 change, for old men affirm that since their childhood they have 

 seen the same crocodile invariably make its appearance upon 

 the same island, nor is there reason to doubt their word, as the 

 reptile attains an extreme old age. A life of a hundred years 

 is exceptional with man, with the crocodile it is probably but a 

 part of its existence. At its birth the animal issues from an 

 egg not bigger than that of a goose ; it grows very slowly like 

 all amphibia, and yet reaches the enormous length of twenty 



