CH. XXXII 
THE LORD OF THE RIVER 
283 
station to sit with their rifles in wait for these 
brutes, and scarcely an evening used to pass with¬ 
out one of these amphibians being shot. 
Some years ago, I had rather a gruesome ex¬ 
perience on the Upper Shire River. I had just 
returned to camp from hunting in the vicinity, when 
I was suddenly startled by a tremendous commotion 
among my natives and those of a neighbouring 
village, and above the hubbub I could hear the 
strident voices of men and women, yelling 
‘ Ngwena ! Ngwena ! ’ (Crocodile ! Crocodile !). 
Concluding that someone had been taken by one of 
these monsters, I seized my *303 and rushed to the 
scene of the tumult. On the river bank, I found 
a crowd of natives, all jabbering excitedly, and after 
some inquiry, elicited the information that one of 
their number, a woman, had gone down to draw 
water, and while she was in the act of filling her 
calabash, a crocodile had seized her by the hand 
and endeavoured to pull her into the stream. 
Fortunately, the woman had had the presence of 
mind to clutch and hold on with her disengaged 
hand to the reeds growing near her and to yell with 
all her might for help, and luckily, too, the crocodile 
had been a young one, or she would have been 
dragged off without further ado. Some men and 
women, who were in the vicinity, at once rushed to 
her aid, and catching hold of her feet, strove to 
