You May Be Sure We
Always Selected A Spot Protected By Very Shoal Water, For The
Crocodiles Were Numerous.
I always shot these loathsome creatures
whenever I got a chance, whenever the sound of a shot would not
alarm more valuable game.
Generally they were to be seen in
midstream, just the tip of their snouts above water, and
extraordinarily like anything but crocodiles. Often it took
several close scrutinies through the glass to determine the
brutes. This required rather nice shooting. More rarely we
managed to see them on the banks, or only half submerged. In this
position, too, they were all but undistinguishable as living
creatures. I think this is perhaps because of their complete
immobility. The creatures of the woods, standing quite still, are
difficult enough to see; but I have a notion that the eye,
unknown to itself, catches the sum total of little flexings of
the muscles, movements of the skin, winkings, even the play of
wind and light in the hair of the coat, all of which, while
impossible of analysis, together relieve the appearance of dead
inertia. The vitality of a creature like the crocodile, however,
seems to have withdrawn into the inner recesses of its being. It
lies like a log of wood, and for a log of wood it is mistaken.
Nevertheless the crocodile has stored in it somewhere a fearful
vitality. The swiftness of its movements when seizing prey is
most astonishing; a swirl of water, the sweep of a powerful tail,
and the unfortunate victim has disappeared.
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