ANIMALS. 41)7 



Zara ; there it lends an indolent kind of life, and seems seldom 

 disposed for action, except when excited by the calls of hniiger. 

 Upon such occasions, three or four of them are often seen at the 

 bottom of a river, near some cataract, forming a kind of line, 

 and seizing upon such fish as are forced down by the violence of 

 the stream. In that element they pursue their prey with great 

 swiftness and perseverance ; they swim with much force, and re- 

 main at the bottom for thirty or forty minutes, without rising to 

 take breath. They traverse the bottom of the stream, as if 

 walking upon land, and make a terrible devastation where they 

 find plenty of prey. But it often happens, that this animal's 

 fishy food is not supplied in sufficient abundance ; it is then 

 forced to come upon land, where it is an awkward and unwieldy 

 stranger ; it moves but slowly, and as it seldom forsakes the 

 margin of the river, it sinks at every step it takes ; sometimes, 

 however, it is forced by famine up into the higher grounds, 

 where it commits dreadful havoc among the plantations of the 

 helpless natives, who see their possessions destroyed, without 

 daring to resist their invader. Their chief method is by light- 

 ing fires, striking drums, and raising a cry to frighten it back to 

 its favourite element ; and as it is extremely timorous upon land, 

 they generally succeed in their endeavours. But if they happen 

 to wound, or otherwise irritate it too closely, it then becomes 

 formidable to all that oppose it : it overturns whatever it meets, 

 and brings forth all its strength, which it seemed not to have 

 discovered before that dangerous occasion. It possesses the 

 same inoffensive disposition in its favourite element, that it is 

 found to have upon land ; it is never found to attack the mariners 

 in their boats as they go up or down the stream ; but should 

 they inadvertently strike against it, or otherwise disturb its re- 

 pose, there is much danger of its sending them at once to the 

 bottom. " I have seen," says a mariner, as we find it in Dam- 

 pier, " one of these animals open its jaw, and seizing a boat be- 

 tween its teeth, at once bite and sink it to the bottom. I have 

 seen it, upon another occasion, place itself under one of our 

 boats, and, rising under it, overset it, with six men who wei'e in 

 it ; who, however, happily received no other injury." Such is 

 the great strength of this animal ; and from hence, probably, 

 the imagination has been willing to match it in combat against 

 others nioic fierce, and equally formidable. The crocodile and 



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