CROCODILE-RIDING. 
419 
the engineer of the plantation, shot at him and 
wounded him ; and though it did not seem that he 
was much hurt, he was hit with such sensitive effect 
that he immediately rose out of the pond to regain 
the morass. It was now that David Brown, an 
African wainman, came up ; and before the reptile 
could make a dodge to get away, he threw himself 
astride over his back, snatched up his fore paws in 
a moment, and held them doubled up. The beast 
was immediately thrown upon his snout ; and though 
able to move freely his hind feet, and slap his tail 
about, he could not budge half a yard, his power 
being altogether spent in a fruitless endeavour to 
grub himself onward. As he was necessarily confined 
to move in a circle, he was pretty nearly held to one 
spot. The African kept his seat. His place across 
the beast being at the shoulders, he was exposed 
only to severe jerks as a chance of being thrown off. 
In this way a huge reptile eighteen feet long, for so he 
measured when killed, was held manu forti by one 
man, till Downie reloaded his fowling-piece, and shot 
him quietly through the brain. 
“You will perceive that this is precisely the feat 
performed by Mr. Waterton. He says his Cayman 
plunged furiously, and lashed the sand with his tail, 
but that, being near the head, he was out of the reach 
of the strokes of it, and that his plunging and striking 
only made his seat uncomfortable. This seemed 
really almost all the difficulty in David Brown’s 
horsemanship ; but as every plunge with him only 
Mrove the Crocodile’s nose into the ground, whereas 
IVIr. Waterton’s Cayman was kept head-up by the 
