XXXII 
THE LORD OF THE RIVER 
285 
and taking him (as we could see from the commo¬ 
tion beneath the surface of the stream) to the other 
side of the river. 
The hand and arm of the woman who had been 
seized by the reptile were badly bitten, so I dressed 
and disinfected the wounds to prevent blood-poison¬ 
ing setting in, and after repeating this operation for 
several days the girl was practically quite well again. 
Strangely enough, on her recovery, she came to me 
and, to my intense surprise, asked me for a present 
because I had cured her, a demand which greatly 
amused me, for, thinking in European fashion, I, 
somehow, dimly felt that, if the question of presents 
entered into the affair, I should be the recipient 
instead of the donor. 
One would naturally think that her experience 
would have taught this girl a lesson, but, in illustra¬ 
tion of my remark about the absolute carelessness 
of natives, less than six months after this occurrence, 
she and another woman were dragged into the river 
and devoured by crocodiles at the very same place. 
On another occasion, I shot a very large croco¬ 
dile on the Upper Shire River, and my men, on 
opening up the reptile’s stomach, made a gruesome 
find in the shape of several native brass bangles, 
which had doubtless once adorned the arm of some 
hapless girl whom the brute had seized while she 
was bathing or drawing water. 
