16 THE EEPTILES OF EGYPT. 
a curiosity at Cairo to the natives as to the Europeans. He, however, did not go south 
of Cairo, and, as Sonnini x remarks, had Shaw been better informed he would have 
learned that Upper Egypt below the cataracts was infested by crocodiles as real as 
they were numerous. 
Towards the end of last century it had disappeared from the delta 2 , but small 
specimens were occasionally met with a little above Cairo. Its occurrence there must 
have been rare, as Pococke 3 , who visited Egypt about 1740, only met with his first 
crocodile at Beni Suef, and Sonnini 4 , towards the close of the century, first saw the 
saurian at Farshut. Denon 5 (1798-9) first encountered it at Denderah ; but he saw 
great numbers of all sizes at Keneh, and he remarks that they seemed to affect the 
banks in certain parts, particularly from Denderah to Ombos, and were most numerous 
at Hermentis (Erment), but apparently less so at Esneh. Henry Light 6 (1814) and 
Major Mackworth 7 (1821-22) record having met crocodiles at Girgeh, Cailliaud 8 
(1826) at Denderah, and Melly 9 (1851) at Beni Hassan. The Rev. A. C. Smith 10 , 
writing in 1868, mentions that although he kept a daily outlook for crocodiles, he met 
none until he had reached El Kab ; but A. L. Adams n , in 1870, records that they were 
occasionally seen as far down as Beni Hassan, but that it was evidently receding 
everywhere below the First Cataract. 
Lord Fitzhardinge, whose experience of the Nile extends over many years, informs 
me that when he first went to Egypt, now about twenty-five years ago, there were three 
places north of Assuan where crocodiles were to be seen, viz. below Denderah, a rocky 
islet in the Nile north of Silsileh, and the sands to the south of the latter locality. 
Four crocodiles were generally to be seen at each of these places. Now, however, they 
have completely disappeared north of the First Cataract. A young crocodile may 
occasionally be carried past the cataract in the period of flood, but so rare has the 
animal become that if one were observed no rest would be given it until it was 
destroyed. A small specimen about 5 feet in length, and probably with a similar 
history, was killed below Assuan in 1890 or 1891, and the stuffed skin was preserved 
over the door of the quarters of one of the British officers at that town. 
It is still not at all uncommon between the First and Second Cataracts, but becomes 
much more numerous in the direction of Dongola. 
From early times, even up to the end of the 17th century, the crocodile occurred in 
abundance above Cairo. This is proved not only by the great number of mummified 
1 Op. cit. i. p. 331. 2 John Antes, op. cit. p. 82. 
3 Op. cit. i. p. 70. " Op. cit. iii. p. 164. 
5 Op. cit. p. 140. ° Op. cit. p. 47. 
7 Diary of a Tour through S. India, Egypt, and Palestine, 1823, p. 225. 
8 Op. cit. i. p. 293. 
9 Khartoum and the Blue and White Niles, 1851, i. p. 128. 
10 Attractions of the Nile and its Banks, i. p. 257. 
11 Notes on the Nile Valley and Malta, p. 53. 
