REPTILES 297 



succeeded, and the fish disappeared inside the croc, and the croc 

 vanished in the stream. It all happened in a few seconds. 



When I have been hippo-shooting on this river, I have had an 

 uncomfortable feeling of the danger of the dug-out canoe up- 

 setting. Between my first and second visit to Fajao such an 

 accident did occur to two men in a canoe. I was told, that the 

 moment the canoe was upset, the spot seemed alive with crocs. 

 One of the men got safely into another dug-out close by ; but 

 when the rescuers were trying to pull in the other man, who 

 was one of our Soudanese soldiers, it was found that it was a tug- 

 of-war against crocs. Thereupon the unfortunate soldier called 

 out : " What's the good ? they have got hold of me ; you had 

 better let go." According to the English officer who told me the 

 particulars of this accident, the would-be rescuers thereupon did 

 let go, and of course the next moment it was all over. The 

 Soudanese take mishaps and misfortunes with stoicism ; their 

 Mohammedan religion bids them to accept everything as 

 " kismet," i.e. fate. 



I lost several crocs, before I managed to secure a specimen. 

 The convulsive start given by the dying reptile used to send 

 it into the stream, and then I was sure never to see it again. 

 Determined to get a specimen, I went in a dug-out, rounding as 

 noiselessly as possible a tongue of land, where I knew there 

 were lots of crocs. I used my Martini- Henry sporting rifle. I 

 aimed at the reptile farthest from the water ; it was apparently 

 shot dead, and I had time to shoot another. In the mean- 

 time the first one gradually recovered and began crawling to- 

 wards the water, leaving a blood streak in its path. But though 

 I plugged three more bullets into it, and could see the blood 

 spurting out, the reptile managed to tumble into the water, and, 

 as on former occasions, 1 never saw it again. I hurriedly re- 

 turned to my second croc, and as it opened and snapped its 

 jaws, though apparently too badly wounded to be able to move, 

 I advanced to within a few yards and sent a bullet crashing into 

 its head. This killed it outright. 



We fastened the body to the side of our dug-out and towed 

 it to the landing-place, where it was dragged ashore and cut 

 up ; the native officer annexing a sort of musk-gland in the 

 armpit, which some appear to value highly. I kept the paws, 

 which are partly webbed. Some of the Soudanese belonging 

 to the Makraka tribe eat crocodile. Among those who wanted 



