borate the narrative of Mr.
Waterton and his alligator.]

The Singhalese believe that the crocodile can only move swiftly on sand
or smooth clay, its feet being too tender to tread firmly on hard or
stony ground. In the dry season, when the watercourses begin to fail and
the tanks become exhausted, the marsh-crocodiles have occasionally been
encountered in the jungle, wandering in search of water. During a severe
drought in 1844, they deserted a tank near Kornegalle and traversed the
town during the night, on their way to another reservoir in the suburb;
two or three fell into the wells; others in their trepidation, laid eggs
in the street, and some were found entangled in garden fences and
killed.

Generally, however, during the extreme drought, when unable to procure
their ordinary food from the drying up of the watercourses, they bury
themselves in the mud, and remain in a state of torpor till released by
the recurrence of rains.[1] At Arne-tivoe, in the eastern province,
whilst riding across the parched bed of the tank, I was shown the
recess, still bearing the form and impress of a crocodile, out of which
the animal had been seen to emerge the day before. A story was also
related to me of an officer attached to the department of the
Surveyor-General, who, having pitched his tent in a similar position,
was disturbed during the night by feeling a movement of the earth below
his bed, from which on the following day a crocodile emerged, making its
appearance from beneath the matting.[2]

[Footnote 1: HERODOTUS records the observations of the Egyptians that
the crocodile of the Nile abstains from food during the four winter
months.--_Euterpe_, lviii.]

[Footnote 2: HUMBOLDT relates a similar story as occurring at Calabazo,
in Venezuela.--_Personal Narrative_, c, xvi.]

The fresh water species that inhabits the tanks is essentially cowardly
in it instincts, and hastens to conceal itself on the appearance of man.
A gentleman (who told me the circumstance), when riding in the jungle,
overtook a crocodile, evidently roaming in search of water. It fled to a
shallow pool almost dried by the sun, and, thrusting its head into the
mud till it covered up its eyes, remained unmoved in profound confidence
of perfect concealment. In 1833, during the progress of the Pearl
Fishery, Sir Robert Wilmot Horton employed men to drag for crocodiles in
a pond which was infested by them in the immediate vicinity of Aripo.
The pool was ab