148 AN EXTRAORDINARY APPARITION. 



canoe, he saw the nose and mouth of a crocodile ! For a 

 second or two his eyes were fixed on this extraordinary 

 apparition, as if spell-bound by a serpent's gaze. The 

 nose was dark gray in colour, smooth and rounded, and 

 projected above the surface. The mouth was open, and 

 the water gurgled out and in. 



" Not the slightest doubt," he says, " had I that this was 

 the face of a crocodile, though from its position behind me 

 in the muddy water, and because my head was low, I did 

 not see its eyes. A crocodile's head had long ago been 

 familiar to me, for I had seen, quite near, at least fifty of 

 them on the Upper Nile. The manner of swimming also 

 — with the nose out of water, and the mouth opened 

 towards the flowing stream — was precisely what is so often 

 noticed on the Nile." 



Hastily rising from his seat, he grasped the paddle, but 

 was doubtful what to do with it. If he struck the animal, 

 it might lash its tail, and injure the frail canoe ; if he 

 dipped the paddle gently, the motion would bring his hand 

 close to the creature's mouth, and an unsophisticated 

 crocodile would very probably snap at such a dainty 

 morsel, though the more knowing ones of the Nile are 

 shy, because they have learned by experience that men 

 mean g-uns, and guns mean bullets, and bullets mean 

 either death or disagreeable wounds. Cautiously, there- 

 fore, the voyager dipped his blade ; the nose and mouth 

 disappeared, and the canoe dashed into the middle of the 

 river. Afterwards, on examining the muddy bank, he 

 discovered numerous footprints of crocodiles ; and from the 

 evidence Mr. Macgregor collected, there seems no reason to 



