256 JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [YOL. XI, 



the young crocodile died,* It was stuffed with straw and 

 kept as a memento, and I often handled it myself. 



Crocodiles there are very dangerous to men, and a good 

 Mend of mine, a painter, lost his wife by one. In 1649, one 

 night at Negumbo, we were ordered to the bank of a river, 

 and my said good friend sat in the bright moonlight, and to 

 while away the time drew sketches in the sand, whilst the 

 others slept. A crocodile crawled up, seized him from 

 behind, and carried him off so quickly that the sentinel upon 

 the Horn Bastion of the Negumbo fortress only heard him 

 call out twice " God !" It was not till two months after- 

 wards that we found his clothes and sword half a mile from 

 Negumbo, on a small island called Walchere.f I saw a 

 native carrying them in his hand when I went to the river 

 to buy fish.J 



A similar fate befell our comrade Wilhelm von Helmont§ 

 He went to bathe in this river, and as he was sitting up to 

 his chest in water, and intending to first wash his head with 

 eggs and limes, and afterwards dry it with cotton leaves, as 

 is the custom there, such a huge crocodile bore him away 

 that we never saw anything more of him. 



The same thing nearly happened to the wife of one of our 

 captains, Marcus Cassels,j] a native of Flanders, at a place ten 

 miles from Punte de Galle, called Madre.. If One evening she 

 wanted to walk down to the river, not far from her house, 



* But soon a wonder came to light, 

 That show'd the rogues they lied ; 

 The man recovered of the bite, 

 The dog it was that died. 



(Goldsmith, Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog.) 

 f Walcheren (Dutch ed.). Probably the modern Duwa, which lies a 

 quarter of a mile from the mainland at the mouth of the Negombo lake, 

 just beyond Kuttiduwa point : here all the fish is sold by auction as it 

 comes in. Another island, Munahkara, is some two hundred yards 

 distant from the Resthouse. 



X Johann von der Behr records a similar incident as having occurred at 

 .Negombo in June, 1648. 



§ Willem van Ilelmont (Dutch ed.). 

 || 3farkus van Kassel (Dutch ed.). 

 *f Matara, thirty English miles south of Gralle. 



