260 THE CROCODILE 



the rivers of our Indian Empire. Whatever 

 may be the case in other parts of the continent, 

 those existing in the Zambezi and its tributaries 

 are not distinguished by extraordinary length, 

 although at times the girth to which they attain 

 is very considerable indeed. The measure- 

 ments of the largest recovered by me from the 

 great numbers I have destroyed were : length 

 just over 17 ft., girth behind the fore-arms 

 7 ft. 2 in. This, however, was an exceptionally 

 large specimen, and was killed by me on the 

 banks of the Urema River in Cheringoma in 1904, 

 and, was, I suppose, quite 3 ft. longer than the 

 average length to which they attain in this part 

 of Africa. The Urema, like all Portuguese East 

 African streams, is full of crocodiles, many of 

 which are of large size. At the point at which I 

 shot the monster above referred to the river 

 flows through an immense open plain destitute 

 of j trees, but high grasses, papyrus rushes, and 

 reeds, growing close to the water, and on wide 

 fiats extending for miles back from its banks, 

 invest the whole region with a mournful air of 

 extreme and depressing desolation. These fiats 

 become converted during many months of the 

 year by rain and overflows into wide systems 

 of impassable marsh. Through these wastes of 

 high grass and reeds there used to be game 

 tracks — narrow, tortuous ways followed in the 

 dry weather by the large numbers of animals 

 which at one time used the Urema as their 

 daily watering-place. Following one of these 

 one morning I was in time conducted to the 



