d which had fastened him, and tying it
to each end of a broken arm of a tree that lay on the shore, he marched
up to the crocodile without the least dismay, and beginning near the
tail, with one leg on one side, and the other on the other side, he
straddled over him, still mending his pace as the beast crept forward,
till he came to his fore-feet; then throwing the great log before his
mouth, he, by the cord in his hand, bobbed it against the creature's
nose, till he gaped wide enough to have taken in the muletto; then of
a sudden, jerking the wood between his jaws with all his force by the
cord, he gagged the beast, with his jaws wide open up to his throat, so
that he could neither make use of his teeth nor shut his mouth; he then
threw one, end of the cord upon the ground, just before the creature's
under-jaw, which, as he by degrees crept along over it, came out behind
his fore-legs on the contrary side; and serving the other end of it in
the same manner, he took up those ends and tied them over the creature's
back, just within his forelegs, which kept the gag firm in his mouth;
and then calling out to me (for I stood at a good distance), "Peter,"
says he, "bring me your knife!" I trembled at going so near, for the
crocodile was turning his head this way and that very uneasy, and
wanting to get to the river again, but yet I carried it, keeping as
much behind him as I could, still eyeing him which way he moved, and at
length tossed my knife so near that Glanlepze could reach it; and he,
just keeping behind the beast's forefeet, and leaning forward, first
darted the knife into one eye, and then into the other; and immediately
leaping from his back, came running to me. "So, Peter," says he, "I have
done the business."--"Aye! business enough, I think," says I, "and more
than I would have done to have been king of Congo."--"Why, Peter," says
he, "there is nothing but a man may compass by resolution, if he takes
both ends of a thing in his view at once, and fairly deliberates on both
sides what may be given and taken from end to end. What you have seen
me perform is only from a thorough notion I have of this beast and of
myself, how far each of us hath power to act and counteract upon the
other, and duly applying the means. But,", says he, "this talk will not
carry us across the river; come, here are the reeds I have pulled up,
which I believe will be sufficient without any more, for I would
not overload the muletto."--"Why,