422 



sad and long experience has taught all beings,, 

 that benignity is seldom found in alliance with 

 strength. 



When the shore is of considerable breadth, 

 the hedge of sauso remains at a distance from 

 the river. In this intermediate ground we see 

 crocodiles, sometimes to the number of eight or 

 ten, stretched on the sand. Motionless, the 

 jaws opened at right angles, they repose by each 

 other without displaying any of those marks of 

 affection, observed in other animals that live in 

 society. The troop separates as soon as they 

 quit the shore. It is, however, probably com- 

 posed of one male only, and many females ; for, 

 as Mr. Descourtils, who has so much studied 

 the crocodiles of Saint Domingo, observed before 

 me, the males are rare* because they kill one 

 another in fighting during the season of their 

 loves. These monstrous reptiles are so numer- 

 ous, that throughout the whole course of the 

 river we had almost at every instant five or six 

 in view. Yet at this period the swelling of the 

 Rio Apure was scarcely perceived ; and conse- 

 quently hundreds of crocodiles were still buried 

 in the mud of the savannahs. About four in the 

 afternoon we stopped to measure a dead croco- 

 dile, that the waters had thrown on the shore. 

 It was only sixteen feet eight inches long ; some 

 days after Mr. Bonpland found another, a male, 

 twenty-two feet three inches long. In every 



