, surrounded by the animals of
the field and the birds of the air, and here we had an exemplification
of how true such pictures may be to nature as it was before sin entered
into the world, and the brutes learned to dread man's cruelty and
tyranny. We had directly after a further example of this. Happening to
turn my head, I saw, not twenty yards behind the kumbuk-tree, what at
first I thought was a log of wood under some bushes of a buffalo-thorn.
I scarcely know what impulse made me approach it, as did the rest.
Solon set up a loud bark, and instantly the seeming log shoved out four
feet, and exhibited to our astonished eyes a hideous crocodile fully
twelve feet long, and evidently of prodigious strength. Still more
terrific did he look when he began to turn round in a circle, hissing
and clanking his bony jaws, with his ugly green eye intently fixed on
us. I felt a strong inclination to run away, for it seemed to me that
he might make a rush and snap one of us up in a moment; but as Nowell
and the natives stood their ground without fear, so did I, while Solon
continued his barking, but at the same time kept wisely at a very
respectful distance. The truth was, that the crocodile, suddenly
aroused from his balmy slumbers, was far more frightened at us than we
had cause to be at him, and was completely paralysed. Dango, knowing
this, struck him with his long pole, when he lay perfectly still,
looking to all appearance dead. In a minute, however, while we were
watching, he looked cunningly round and made a rush towards the water,
which his instinct told him was the safest place for him to be in. On
receiving, however, a second blow, he lay motionless and feigned death
as before. Nowell then did what I certainly should not have thought of
attempting; he caught him by the tail, and pulled away with all his
might, but he could as easily have moved an elephant. Dango poked him
on the back with his long pole. Solon kept barking away, but did not
get within range of his jaws, knowing full well that he could use them
to good effect if he chose, and gobble him up in a moment; while I, at
Nowell's desire, belaboured his hard scales with a stout stick.
Meantime the other native was cutting a thin, long twig from a creeper,
and, while we were all hallooing and shrieking, and trying to arouse the
monster, he quietly inserted it under his arm, tickling him gently. In
an instant he showed that he was alive, by drawing in the