VITALITY OF CROCODILES 353 



Humboldt also relates that, during the inundations of the 

 Orinoco, alligators will sometimes make their appearance in the 

 very streets of Angostura, where they have been known to attack 

 and drag away a human prey. 



Even among each other, these ferocious animals frequently 

 engage in deadly conflict. Thus, Kichard Schomburgk once saw 

 a prodigiously large Cayman seize one of a smaller species 

 [Champsa vallifrons) by the middle of the body, so that the head 

 and tail projected on both sides of its muzzle. Now both of 

 them disappeared under the surface, so that only the agitated 

 waters of the otherwise calm river announced the death-struggle 

 going on beneath ; and then again the monsters reappeared, 

 wildly beating the surface ; so that it was hardly possible to dis- 

 tinguish here a tail, or there a monstrous head, in the seething 

 whirlpool. At length, however, the tumult subsided, and the 

 large Cayman was seen leisurely swimming to a sand-bank, 

 where he immediately began to feed upon his prey. 



The same traveller relates an interesting example of the 

 Cayman's tenacity of life. One of them having been wounded 

 with a strong harpoon, was dragged upon a sand-bank. Here 

 the rays of the sun seemed to infuse new life into the monster, 

 for, awaking from his death-like torpidity, he suddenly snapped 

 about him with such rage that Schomburgk and his assistants 

 thought it prudent to retreat to a safer distance. Seizing a long 

 and mighty pole, the bravest of the Indians now went towards 

 the Cayman, who awaited the attack with wide-extended jaws, 

 and plunged the stake deep into his maw — a morsel which the 

 brute did not seem to relish. Meanwhile two other Indians 

 approached him from behind, and kept striking him with thick 

 clubs upon the extremity of the tail. At every blow upon this 

 sensitive part, the monster bounded in the air and extended his 

 frightful jaws, which were each time immediately regaled with 

 a fresh thrust of the pole. After a long and furious battle, the 

 Cayman, who measured twelve feet in length, was at last slain. 

 Another remarkable instance of the vitality of the common 

 crocodile is mentioned by Sir E. Tennent. A gentleman at Galle 

 having caught on a baited hook an unusually large one, it was 

 disembowelled by his coolies, the aperture in the stomach being 

 'left expanded by a stick placed across it. On returning, in the 

 afternoon, with a view to secure the head, they found that the 



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