CHAP. XVL] 
SHOOT A CROCODILE . 
453 
cloth we had), in which he slept till morning. Poor 
little Abbai! I often wonder what will be his fate, and 
whether in his dreams he recalls the few months of 
happiness that brightened his earliest days of slavery. 
Although we were in good health in Shooa, many of 
the men were ill, suffering generally from headache; 
also from ulcerated legs;—the latter was a peculiar 
disease, as the ulcer generally commenced upon the 
ankle bone and extended to such a degree that the 
patient was rendered incapable of walking. The treat¬ 
ment for headache among all the savage tribes was a 
simple cauterization of the forehead in spots burnt with 
a hot iron close to the roots of the hair. The natives 
declared that the water was unwholesome from the 
small stream at the foot of the hill, and that all those 
who drank from the well were in good health. I went 
down to examine the spring, which I found beautifully 
clear, while the appearance of the stream was quite 
sufficient to explain the opposite quality. As I was 
walking quietly along the bank, I saw a bright ray of 
light in the grass upon the opposite side ; in another 
moment I perceived the head of a crocodile who was 
concealed in the grass, the brightness of the sun’s 
reflexion upon the eye having attracted my attention. 
A shot with the little 24 rifle struck just above the 
eye and killed it;—it was a female, from which we 
extracted seven large eggs, all with hard shells. 
The shooting that I had while at Shooa was confined 
to antelopes; of these there was no variety excepting 
waterbuck and hartebeest. Whenever I shot an animal, 
the Shooa natives would invariably cut its throat, and 
drink the hot blood as it gushed from the artery. In 
this neighbourhood there was a great scarcity of game; 
the natives of Lira described their country as teeming 
with elephants and rhinoceros ; a fine horn of the latter 
they brought with them to Shooa. There is only one 
variety of rhinoceros that I have met with in the 
portions of Africa that I have visited : this is the two¬ 
horned, a very exact sketch of which I made of the 
