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fairly off of her own accord, and glided gracefully into mid-stream. There are some interesting tombs in the mountains three miles from the shore at El Kab, whither we wandered during the sunny hours of that day.

CHAPTER XXIII.

CROCODILES: SUPERSTITION.

"Lepidus. What manner of thing is your crocodile?

Anthony. It is shaped, Sir, like itself, and it is as broad as it has breadth it moves with its own organs: it lives by that which nourisheth it and the elements once out of it, it transmigrates.

Lepidus. 'Tis a strange serpent!

Anthony. 'Tis so: and the tears of it are wet."

It was somewhere in this neighbourhood, I think, that Smith made a dead set on the crocodiles. Poor Smith! it went to his heart that he had hitherto failed in every endeavour to kill one. "Such bad luck ill beseems a sportsman," moaned he. "What will they say at home?" And under this chilling blight he pined for many a day. But, indeed, a crocodile, being invulnerable to bullets, save in a little spot under the shoulder, takes a deal of killing. The crocodile's haunt is on little reedy islands and sandbanks, where spoonbills and pelicans resort ; there he basks in the sultry noon, and dozes till the going down of the sun. Smith's way was to take his seat at the prow while the boat was sailing in smooth waters, his loaded rifle ready to hand,—and recon

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noitre the landscape through a glass. "Look you! there be one big one, sar," the Caliph-who had a keener eye than Smith, glass and all-would whisper, pointing eagerly forwards, "Vare big beast; he no child that!" "Where? where?" Bang! and the rifle ball would hiss across to some neighbouring bank, or, short of that, play ducks and drakes in the sunlight on the stream. But, alas! the crocodile was heedless of these gentle measures. You want a seven-pounder to pierce such deftly-plated sides. Heedless? not altogether so; for the big sprawling creatures, which from a distance look more like withered tree trunks than the hideous reptiles that they are, will peer up querulously, and then with a droll wabble pitch themselves over into the water and be seen no more.

The Caliph, laughing from ear to ear at our friend's failures, consoled him: "Crocodile, him cunning fellow, sare; him smell Englishman gun mile off; him no wait for gentleman-ya! ya!"

An acquaintance of ours, however, killed onea splendid old patriarch-in that bend of the river where the solemn ruins of the temple of Koum Ombos frown over the tide. He managed it thus. In the early morning his sailors dug a hole or grave for him in a sand-bank eligibly situated-a sandbank known to be a favoured retreat or summer bower with these chilly dragons of the stream.

Thither the sportsman, well armed, betook himself while the day was yet cool and dewy. He sent back his felucca, seated himself in the pit, and there lay hidden for hours on the watch. Morning grew to hot noon; the kindly shadow fled from the heapedup sand. The meridian was past. The sun fell straight in until he was nearly roasted. About noon two or three scaly monsters peeped out above the ripples inquiringly. Then they crawled up and stretched their big torpid bodies indolently on the sand. Then by-and-by each settled himself down to a nap. This was what our friend had waited for; he showed his head warily. They were as soundly asleep as any old gentleman in his after-dinner doze -all was still. The sportsman saw his chance, took good and deliberate aim at twenty yards-he had two other rifles handy in case of mishap-fired; and the shot penetrated more than a foot inwards from the shoulder.

The wounded brute plunged into the tide, struggled and gasped, and tore up the water; but the lead was too much for him. He went down, and was lost for five minutes, then came up labouring more violently than before. He was finally hauled into the felucca by ropes, and afterwards stuffed. Fourteen feet he measured from head to tail. It is not often such big ones are captured. The little fry, whose skin is penetrable, are the most easily

A BABY CROCODILE: ITS TEARS.

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killed. But then they are the most agile. When disturbed on a bank they wriggle off to the water in a trice, while the old wizened grandfathers and great-grandfathers, of goodness knows how many centuries old, take the matter more leisurely.*

We bought a young crocodile one day, “all alive.” It had got entangled in a net. The fishermen bound up its jaws, and secured its feet with a thick string, so that the only weapon was its tail. They pitched it on our deck, and it flopped and turned summersaults, and looked at us angrily out of its little quick eyes. Crocodile tears are no myth, I can assure you; for this baby-who measured about four feet-blubbered like any schoolboy. Tears coursed each other down on to the deck. It had an odd way of pulling a second covering over its eyes when you teased it-a thick transparent skin. You might be permitted to stroke its back or poke your fun at it in any way except by touching its tail. That it had a strong objection to, and would swear at you like a cat if you ever attempted it.

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*Herodotus gives a singular account of chasing crocodiles:Among the various methods that are used to take the crocodile," says he, "I shall only relate one which deserves attention. They fix on a hook a piece of swine's-flesh, and suffer it to float into the middle of the stream. On the banks they have a live hog, which they beat till it squeaks out. The crocodile, hearing its cry, makes towards it, and in the way encounters and devours the bait. They then draw it on shore, and the first thing they do is to fill the eyes with clay it is thus easily manageable, which it otherwise would not be."-HEROD. Euterpe. lxx.