2 THE EBPTILES OF EGYPT. 
Among the many classical authors who have described the crocodile of the Nile, 
Herodotus ' hoids the front rank. He informs us that it was known to the ancient 
Egyptians as Champsce, a name which survives in the Coptish anisah, or, with the 
masculine article P prefixed, P-amsah 2 , and in the Arabic L**j=Timsah, all of 
which have a common origin in emsiih, signifying " from the egg." 
Strabo 3 relates that 100 stadia above the Labyrinth the traveller comes to the city of 
Arsinoe or Crocodilopolis, so called because the crocodile was held in high veneration 
by the inhabitants, who kept one alive in a lake and called it aov^oc. This term, as 
opposed to \an4, a , was supposed by E. Geoffroy St.-Hilaire to signify the existence of 
two species in the Nile ; and so firmly convinced was he of their existence, that he 
described them under the names C. vulgaris and C. suchus. 
Strabo has given a graphic account of his visit to the tame crocodile of the nome of 
Arsinoe. He was accompanied by his host, who went provided with some cake, roast 
beef, and wine ; and on reaching the lake they found the crocodile lying on the bank, 
and so docile was it, that the attendant priests opened its mouth, into which they 
placed the cake and meat, and afterwards poured the wine. Geoffroy held that 
crocodiles manifesting this mild disposition were specifically distinct from another 
species distinguished by its savage nature, and that the sacred crocodiles were always 
selected from the former. He quoted, in support of this view, a statement made by 
Damascius 4 , in his life of Isidore, to the effect that " the suchis is righteous or just ; 
this is a name of a species of crocodile. It hurts no animal." 
Cuvier has pointed out that neither Herodotus, Aristotle, Deodorus, Pliny, nor /Elian 
had any idea of two different kinds of crocodile existing in the Nile, and that the 
mildness of character of the sacred individuals, as pointed out by Aristotle and other 
classical authors, only illustrates the fact that no animal is so savage that it cannot be 
tamed by man, if his treatment of it is gentle, and if he supplies it with abundance of 
food. The destructive C. palustris of Indian rivers when similarly treated becomes so 
tame that it can be fed by hand, and so trustful of man that the priests at the hot 
springs of Pir Manglo, 6 or 7 miles from Karachi, even paint its forehead 5 . 
A careful consideration of all that has been handed down by the ancients regarding 
1 Herod, ii. 69. Herodotus also states that KpunoSeiXos was a word of great antiquity and of Ionian origin. 
It was applied by lonians in Egypt to the crocodile because in this animal they saw a resemblance to the 
large lizards of their own hedgerows. 
Etymologists hold that KpoKuhei\us is a compound word. They are at one that the second element oet\os 
signifies " fearful or timid " : but some hold that the first portion of the word is /,-pdi.os, saffron ; while others 
maintain that it is npunri, the sea-shore or a bank. Gesner favoured the first explanation, but Bochart 
regarded both derivations as ridiculous. 
■ Jablonski, Pantheon iEgyptorum. Erankfurt, 1750. 8vo. Pt. iii. p. 70. 
3 Geogr. Bk. xvii. vol. v. p. 411. Paris, 1819. 4to. 
" Photii Bibliotheca, ed. Hoeschelii, 1653, p. 1048. 
'" A. L. Adams, ' Wanderings of a Naturalist in India/ 1867, p. 43. 
