CROCODILES AND ALLIGATORS. 
483 
of those which bad been stopped by them at night. The 
Shire swarmed with crocodiles, sixty-seven were counted 
on a single bank. The natives eat them, but the flesh is 
too strong in flavor to please a fastidious taste. The 
crocodile differs from the alligator in these points. The 
alligator has its fourth or canine tooth fitting into a hole 
in the upper jaw, while in the crocodile it fits into a 
notch. The fore foot of the crocodile has five unwebbed 
toes, the hind foot has four toes webbed ; in the alligator 
the web is wanting altogether. When the crocodile finds 
plenty of fish, it is not to be feared ; but when the rivers 
are high, the fish desert their usual haunts, and there being 
no necessity on the part of other animals to come to the 
rivers for water, the crocodiles suffer from hunger. They 
lie in wait for persons who come to the stream to draw 
water, and thus on the Zambesi annually destroy many 
women. A famine caused by drought had completed the 
desolation caused by the slave trade ; so that had the party 
known how desolate the valley of the Shire was, they 
would not have attempted its exploration. 
Supposing that if a steamer could be got upon the lake, 
it would be possible to put a stop to the slave trade, the 
Lady Nyassa was taken apart at a rivulet about five hun- 
dred yards below the first cataract, and a road was com- 
menced over the thirty-five or forty miles of land porterage, 
in order to carry her up in pieces. The chief labor in 
making the road was cutting down the trees. No tsetso 
infested this district, so that the cattle brought from 
Johanna flourished on the abundant pasture. At the 
uppermost cataract, the road was 1200 feet above the sea 
level. The desolation of the country obliged the party to 
live upon salt provisions and preserved meats, which made 
dysentery universal among them. Dr. Livingstone had an 
attack which lasted a month, and reduced him to a shadow ; 
and it was decided that all the whites who could be spared 
should return to England, for which placo they set out on 
the 1 9th of May. 
