96 ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 



Beautiful as Paradise, this place — called Serimungalem — 

 was like Paradise, too, in being provided with its serpent, 

 here in the form of crocodiles, generally called ' muggers/ 

 But for them bathing would have been delightful ; as it 

 was, the idea of it was only tantalising ; for though the 

 people living about didn't mind them, we did. The creatures 

 lay basking on the mossy banks and sandy reaches, looking 

 so exactly like logs that one might easily make the mistake 

 of taking a seat on one. Very bold they were, too ; if not 

 attacking, yet neither getting away, and apt to try chances 

 for a meal if unobserved. 



One night F. had fixed his fishing- wheels, and meant to 

 sleep till the whirring, indicating a bite, should wake him. 

 One or other of the men was to keep watch, but he trusted 

 most to his own perceptions. After a time something — he 

 never knew what — did wake him, though the wheels were 

 still and the watcher snoring. Sitting up he made out a 

 * mugger ' creeping towards him, just its own length away ; 

 he turned it back into the water with a push, and shifted 

 himself to another place. 



I never saw people lead an easier life than did the riverside 

 dwellers of these parts. The men were always fishing or 

 bartering their catches with other villages in exchange for 

 various commodities ; the women and the children, who 

 swarmed, had nothing to do, apparently, but eat, play, and 

 look at us. 



Whether it be from the nature of the water I do not know, 

 but the skin of these men, who spend nearly all their time in 

 it — often up to their necks — is scaly-looking and iridescent, 

 with very much the appearance of the film which gathers 

 over an iron-impregnated pond ; that of the children is 

 already faintly so, while the old men are quite mother-of- 

 pearly brown. The women, being more or less clothed, 

 are not so affected, but the rest, who are satisfied with six 

 inches of rag for raiment, show a good deal of bare surface, 



