Chap. IX.] 



CROCODILES. 



287 



tially cowardly in its instincts, and hastens to conceal 

 itself on the appearance of man. A gentleman (who told 

 me the circumstance), when riding in the jungle, over- 

 took a crocodile, evidently roaming in search of water. 

 It fled to a shallow pool almost dried by the sun, and, 

 thrusting its head into the mud till it covered up its 

 eyes, remained unmoved in profound confidence of per- 

 fect concealment. In 1833, during the progress of the 

 Pearl Fishery, Sir Eobert Wilmot Horton employed 

 men to drag for crocodiles in a pond which was infested 

 by them in the immediate vicinity of Aripo. The 

 pool was about fifty yards in length, by ten or twelve 

 wide, shallowing gradually to the edge, and not ex- 

 ceeding four or five feet at the deepest part. As the 

 party approached the bund, from twenty to thirty 

 reptiles, which had been basking in the sun, rose and 

 fled to the water. A net, specially weighted so as to 

 sink its lower edge to the bottom, was then stretched 

 from bank to bank and swept to the further end of the 

 pond, followed by a line of men with poles to drive the 

 crocodiles forward : so complete was the arrangement, 

 that no individual could have evaded the net, yet, to the 

 astonishment of the Governor's party, not one was to be 

 found when it was drawn on shore, and no means of 

 escape for them was apparent or possible except by their 

 descending into the mud at the bottom of the pond. 



The lagoon of Batticaloa, and indeed all the still 

 waters of this district, are remarkable for the numbers 

 and prodigious size of the crocodiles which infest them. 

 Their teeth are sometimes so large that the natives 

 mount them with silver lids and use them for boxes to 

 carry the powdered chunam, which they chew with the 

 betel leaf. During one of my visits to the lake a crocodile 

 was caught within a few yards of the government agent's 



