Shooting Crocodiles 33 



or the teeth in the case of the old ones were worn 

 out. 



During these few days on the banks of the river 

 my companions often amused themselves by shooting 

 at crocodiles, several of which they killed. One 

 morning when we were at lunch, one of these reptiles, 

 measuring a good length, which had been killed the 

 moment before, was dragged ashore, and they came 

 to tell us that a man was in its stomach. Upon 

 verification it was found that its intestines contained 

 at least part of a human body. An arm with the 

 hand attached, a foot with the ankle, and a few ribs 

 were withdrawn each part being clean cut from the 

 body and hardly damaged, though the flesh was 

 swollen and the skin was discoloured under the action 

 of gastric juices shielded from the light. I ordered 

 these remains to be buried, but nobody would touch 

 them : so I had everything crocodile and contents- 

 thrown back into the river. The human remains 

 floated, and the sailors of a gun-boat which arrived 

 below stream reported to their officer that they had 

 seen the arm of a white man descending the current 

 of the river. This news caused great agitation in the 

 district. On the following day another crocodile, 

 containing the head and the shoulders of the man, a 

 part of whose body we had found on the previous day, 

 was killed. This discovery caused me in future to 

 open the crocodiles which I shot, a thing I had never 

 thought of doing before ; and thus I found several 

 times rather strange things, including half a goat-skin 

 rolled into a ball, and a red loin-cloth. At Lake 



3 



