WATER-LIZARDS 335 



him alive to study his habits, I placed him in a Malay wicker 

 hen-coop. As we were sitting, however, at dinner, the black 

 cook, with great alarm depicted in his features, reported that 

 ' Alligator got out his cage ! ' Seizing the carving knife, I rushed 

 down, and was just in time to cut off his retreat into the adjoin- 

 ing swamp. Turning sharply round, he made a snap at my 

 leg, and received in return a ' Kowland for his Oliver ' in the 

 shape of an inch or so of cold steel. After wrestling on the 

 ground, and struggling through the deserted fire of our sable 

 cook, I at length secured the runaway, tied him up to a post, 

 and to prevent further mischief, ended his career by dividing 

 the jugular. The length of this lizard from actual measure- 

 ment was five feet ten inches and a half." 



These semi-aquatic, dingy-hued saurians are admirably 

 adapted to the hot moist swamps and shallow lagoons that 

 fringe the rivers of the tropical alluvial plains. As we watch 

 their dark forms, plunging and wallowing in the water, or 

 sluggishly moving over the soft and slimy mud, the imagina- 

 tion is carried back to the age of reptiles, when the muddy 

 shores of the primeval ocean swarmed with their uncouth 

 forms. The huge lizard, six or seven feet long, to which divine 

 honours are paid at Bonny on the coast of Guinea, belongs most 

 likely to this amphibious class. Undisturbed, the lazy monsters 

 crawl heavily through the streets, and as they pass, the negroes 

 reverentially make way. A white man is hardly allowed to look 

 at them, and hurried as fast as possible out of their presence. 

 An attempt was once made to kidnap one of these dull lizard- 

 gods for the benefit of a profane museum, but the consequences 

 were such as to prevent a repetition of the offence, for all 

 trade and intercourse with the ships in harbour was immedi- 

 ately stopped, and affairs assumed so hostile an aspect, that the 

 foreigners were but too glad to purchase peace with a considerable 

 sacrifice of money and goods. When one of these lizards crawls 

 into a house, it is considered a great piece of good fortune ; and 

 when it chooses to take a bath, the Bonnians hurry after it in 

 their canoes. After having allowed it to swim a stretch, and 

 to plunge several times, they seize it for fear of danger, and 

 carry it back again to the land, well pleased at once more 

 having the sacred reptile in their safe possession. 



The* formidable name of Flying Dragons has been given to a 



