424 



with nature, discourse daily turns on the mean^ 

 that may be employed to escape from a tiger* 

 a boa or fraga venado, or a crocodile ; every one 

 prepares himself in some sort for the dangers 

 that await him. I knew, said the young girl of 

 Uritucu coolly, " that the cay man lets go his 

 hold, if you push your fingers into his eyes.'* 

 Long after my return to Europe I learned, that 

 in the interior of Africa the Negroes know and 

 practise the same means. Who does not recol- 

 lect with a lively interest Isaaco, the guide of 

 the unfortunate Mungo Park, seized twice, near 

 Boulinkombou % by a crocodile, and twice 

 escaping from the jaws of the monster, having 

 succeeded in placing his fingers under water in 

 both his eyes? The African Isaaco, and the 

 young American, owed their safety to the same 

 presence of mind, and the same combination of 

 ideas. 



The movements of the crocodile of the Apure 

 are abrupt and rapid when it attacks any object ; 

 but it moves with the slowness of a salamander, 

 when it is not excited by rage or hunger. The 

 animal in running makes a rustling noise, that 

 seems to proceed from the rubbing of the scales 

 of it's skin against one another. In this move- 

 ment it bends it's back, and appears higher on 

 it's legs than when at rest. We often heard this 



* Mungo Park's last Travels in Africa, 1815, p. 89. 



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