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8. —“Tame” Crocodiles in India. 
The late Mr. John Lockwood Kipling, C.I.E., in his book, 
“Beast and Man in India” (1904), on page 318, writes : — 
“ Crocodiles are occasionally regarded as sacred, one 
cannot say kept and periodically fed. Mugcjur pw near 
Karachi is a pond full of these creatures, which are often 
fed for the amusement of visitors. There is a legend of a 
British officer who crossed thi§ pool, using its inhabitants 
as stepping-stones in his daring passage.’^ In some of the 
lakes in Eajputana they are cherished and come to the 
Brahman’s call ; not one may be visible at first, but there 
is first a ripple, then a slow, hideous head protrudes, then 
another, till the water is alive with crocodiles.” 
I made very many enquiries as to the places in India in 
which crocodiles are thus kept and will come to a man’s call, 
but could only hear of the Jaipur tank and the Karachi 
Mugger Pir, at both of which places the crocodiles can hardly 
be considered sacred, their food being mainly if not entirely 
provided by the money of European visitors, and it is 
noteworthy that in both places the keepers of the reptiles 
are Mohammedans and not Hindoos. 
Mr. K. B. Kinnear, of the Bombay Natural History Society, 
who had been particularly kind in trying to obtain infor- 
mation about crocodiles for me, called my attention to an 
article in “ The Times of India,” of June 7, 1913 (the 
day I left India), entitled “ Crocodile Habits,” quoted from 
a paper in the “ Cornhill Magazine” by Mr. Shelland Bradley. 
Mr. Bradley describes having seen at a tank known as the 
Ghoradighi, “constructed by the great Khan Jahan Ali four 
hundred and fifty years ago,” in the Sunderbans, crocodiles 
which when called by one of the villagers come right up 
into the shallow water below the bank and wait to be fed 
with fowls. These crocodiles are “ said to be the descendants 
of those placed there by Khan Jahan Ali,” and so would be 
of Mohammedan interest as curiosities and have nothing to 
do with Hindoo worship. 
I believe this feat Avas accomplished in, or about, the year 1842. The officer 
was Lieut. Beresford of the 86th B'oot, now the 2nd Battalion Royal Irish Rifles. See 
Burton, “Sind,” 2nd Edition, 1851, Vol. 1, page 5(), and also Burton, “Sind 
Revisited,” 1877, Vol. I, page 99. 
