CROCODILES. 101 



its banks being generally sandy and barren, the other CIIAP. xvi. 

 liigher and covered with tail trees. Sometimes, how- nankTofthe 

 ever, it was bordered on both sides l)y forests, and re- 1''" Ai>iir& 

 sembled a straiglit canal 320 yards in breadth. Bushes of 

 sauso (Permesia castancifolia) formed along the margins 

 a kind of hedge about four feet high, in which the 

 jaguars, tapirs, and pecaris, had made openings for the 

 purpose of drinking ; and as these animals manifest 

 little fear at the approach of a boat, the travellers had 

 the pleasure of viewing them as they walked slowly 

 along the shore, until they disappeared in tlie forest. 

 When the sauso-hedge was at a distance from the 

 current, crocodiles were often seen in parties of eight or CrocodOos. 

 ten, stretched out on the sand motionless, and with their 

 jaws opened at right angles. These monstrous reptiles 

 were so numerous, that throughout the whole course oi 

 the river there were usually five or six in view, although 

 the waters had scarcely begun to rise, and hundreds 

 were still buried in the mud of the savannahs. A dead 

 individual which they found was 17 feet 9 inches long, 

 and another, a male, was more than 23. This species is 

 not a cayman or alligator, but a real crocodile, with feet 

 dentated on the outer edge like that of the Nile. The 

 Indians informed them, that scarcely a year passes at sinfrniar 

 San Fernando without two or three persons being escape from 

 drowned by them, and related the history of a young 

 girl of Urituco, who, by singular presence of mind, 

 made her escape from one. Finding herself seized and 

 carried into the water, she felt for the eyes of the ani- 

 mal, and thrust her fingers into them ; when the 

 crocodile let her loose, after biting off^ the lower part of 

 her left arm. Notwithstanding the quantity of blood 

 which she lost, she was still able to reach the shore by 

 swimming with the right hand. Mungo Park's guide, 

 Isaaco, effected his preservation from a crocodile by em- 

 ploying the same means. The motions of these animals 

 are abrupt and rapid when they attack an oljject, 

 although they move very slowly when not excited. In 

 running they make a rustling noise, which seems to 



