CHAPTER XXXII 



THE LORD OF THE RIVER 



NEXT to the lion, comes the crocodile as a 

 perpetual menace to native life. The average 

 black man, too, is so careless and so imbued with 

 fatalistic ideas, that thousands of them are annually 

 killed by these monsters of river and pool, when the 

 exercise of a little caution would obviate the 

 majority of such fatalities. 



When I was living in the vicinity of the Shire 

 River, in Nyassaland, crocodiles were continually 

 catching and devouring natives usually women 

 who, heedless of danger, came down to the banks 

 to draw water or bathe in the shallow reaches ; while 

 at Fort Johnston, on the Upper Shire, an incredible 

 number of natives fell victims to these insatiable 

 reptiles. 



At Mpimbi, also on the Shire River, crocodiles 

 actually made a practice of upsetting native canoes, 

 in order to secure the occupants, and it became a 

 favourite pastime of Europeans resident at that 



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