ORDER II. SAURIA.— ALLIGATORS AND CROCODILES. 123 
fond of the monstrous and grotesque. A moderate ride through a sandy and 
sterile track, varied with a few patches of jungle, brings one to a grove of 
tamarind trees, hid in the bosom of which lie the grisly brood of monsters. 
Little would one, ignorant of the doca/e, suspect that, under that green 
wood, in that tiny pool, which an active leaper could half spring across, 
such hideous denizens are concealed. ‘Here is the pool,’ I said to my guide, 
rather contemptuously, “but where are the crocodiles?’ At the same time 
I was stalking on very boldly, with head erect, and rather inclined to flout 
the whole affair, za@so adunco. A sudden hoarse roar or bark, however, 
under my very feet, made me execute a pirouette in the air with extraordi- 
nary adroitness, and, perhaps, with more animation than grace. I had 
almost stepped on a young crocodilian imp, about three feet long, whose 
bite, small as he was, would have been the reverse of pleasant. Presently 
the genius of the place appeared in the shape of a wizard-looking old fakir, 
who, on my presenting him with a couple of rupees, produced his wand (in 
other words, a long pole), and then proceeded to call up his spirits. On 
his shouting, ‘Ao! Ao!’ (Come! Come!), two or three times, the water 
suddenly became alive with monsters. At least threescore huge crocodiles, 
some of them fifteen feet in length, made their appearance, and came throng- 
ing to the shore. The whole scene reminded me of fairy tales. The soli- 
tary wood, the pool, with its strange inmates, the fukir’s lonely hut on the 
hillside, the fakir himself, tall, swart, and gaunt, the rubber-looking Biluciiit 
by my side, made up a fantastic picture. Strange, too, the control our 
showman displayed over his ‘lions.’ On his motioning with the pole, they 
stopped (indeed, they had already arrived at a disagreeable propinquity), 
and on his calling out, ‘ Baitho’ (Sit down), they lay flat on their stomachs, 
erinning horrible obedience with their open and expectant jaws. Some 
large pieces of flesh were thrown to them, to get which they struggled, 
writhed, and fought, and tore the flesh into shreds and gobbets. I was 
amused with the respect the smaller ones showed to their overgrown seniors. 
One fellow, about ten feet long, was walking up to the feeding-ground from 
the water, when he caught a glimpse of one much larger just behind him. It 
was odd to see the frightened look with which he sidled out of the way, evi- 
dently expecting to lose half a yard of his tail before he could effect his 
retreat. At a short distance (perhaps half a mile) from the first pool I 
was shown another, in which the water was as warm as one could bear it 
for complete immersion ; yet, even here, I saw some small alligators. The 
fakirs told me these brutes were very numerous in the river, about fifteen or 
twenty miles to the west. The monarch of the place, an enormous croco- 
dile, to whom the fakir had given the name of ‘ Mor Sahib’ (My Lord Mor), 
never obeyed the call to come out. As I walked round the pool, I was 
