I could not take him with me across the river, as the 

 ' ^fly ' was said to be bad there, and it was no place to 

 risk horse or dog. The best of prospects would not 

 have tempted me to take chance with him, but I hated 

 ordering him to stay behind, as it hurt his dignity 

 and sense of comradeship, so it seemed a happy accident 

 that he was asleep and I could slip away unseen. As 

 the cattle were grazing along the river-bank only a few 

 hundred yards off, I took a turn that way to have a 

 look at them, with natural but quite fruitless concern 

 for their welfare, and a moment later met the herd-boy 

 running towards me and calling out excitedly some- 

 thing which I made out to be : 



" Crocodile ! Crocodile, Inkos ! A crocodile has 

 taken one of the oxen." The waggon-boys heard it 

 also, and armed with assegais and sticks were on the 

 bank almost as soon as I was ; but there was no 

 sign of crocodile or bullock. The boy showed 

 us the place where the weakened animal had gone 

 down to drink the hoof slides were plain enough 

 and told how, as it drank, the long black coffin-head had 

 appeared out of the water. He^described stolidly how 

 the big jaws had opened and gripped the bullock's 

 how he, a few yards away, had 



nose 



the struggle ; how he had shouted and hurled 

 his sticks and stones and tufts of grass, and 

 feinted to rush down at it ; and how,' 

 after a muffled bellow and a weak 

 staggering effort to pull back, the poor 

 beast had slid out into the deep water 

 and disappeared. It seemed to be a- 



431 



