CROCODILES AND ALLIGATORS.
Their Habits--The Gavial and the Tiger--Mode of Seizing their Prey--
Their Voice--Their Preference of Human Flesh--Alligator against
Alligator--Wonderful Tenacity of Life--Tenderness of the Female
Cayman for her Young--The Crocodile of the Nile--Its Longevity--
Enemies of the Crocodile--Torpidity of Crocodiles during the Dry
Season--Their Awakening from their Lethargy with the First Rains--
‘Tickling a Crocodile.’
There was a time, long before man appeared upon the scene, when huge
Crocodiles swarmed in the rivers of England, and, for aught we know,
basked on the very spot where now their grim representatives can hardly
be said to adorn the grounds of Sydenham Palace.
But the day when the ferocious, bone-harnessed Saurians lorded it in
the European streams has passed, never to return; the diminished warmth
of what are now the temperate regions of the globe having long since
confined them to the large rivers and lagunes of the torrid zone. The
scourge and terror of all that lives in the waters which they frequent,
they may with full justice be called the very images of depravity, as
perhaps no animals in existence bear in their countenance more decided
marks of cruelty and malice. The depressed head, so significant of a
low cerebral development; the vast maw, garnished with formidable rows
of conical teeth, entirely made for snatch and swallow; the elongated
mud-coloured body, with its long lizard-like tail, resting on short
legs, stamp them with a peculiar frightfulness, and proclaim the
baseness of their instincts.
The short-snouted, broad-headed Alligators, or Caymen, belong to the
New World; the Gavials, distinguished by their straight, long, and
narrow jaw, are exclusively Indian; while the oblong-headed Crocodiles
are not only found in Africa and Asia, but likewise infest the swamps
and rivers of America. All these animals, however, though different in
form and name, have everywhere similar habits and manners; so that, in
general, what is remarked of the one may be applied to the others.
[Illustration: ALLIGATOR.]
[Illustration: CAPYBARA.]
Formed for an aquatic life they are very active in the water, darting
along with great rapidity by means of their strong muscular tail
and their webbed hind feet. They sometimes bask in the sunbeams on
the banks of the rivers, but oftener float on the surface, where,
concealing their head and feet, they appear like the rough trunk of a
tree, both in shape and colour, and thus are enabled the more easily to
deceive and catch their prey.
In America, many a slow-paced Capybara, or water-pig, coming in the
dusk of evening to slake its thirst in the lagune, has been suddenly
seized by an insidious Alligator; and the Gangetic Gavial is said to
make even the tiger his prey. When the latter quits the thick cover
of the jungle to drink at the stream, the Gavial, concealed under
water, steals along the bank, and, suddenly emerging, furiously attacks
the tiger, who never declines the combat; and though in the struggle
the Gavial frequently loses his eyes and receives dreadful wounds on
the head, he at length drags his adversary into the water, and there
devours him.[29]
In order to observe the manner in which the Alligator seizes its prey,
Richard Schomburgk frequently tied a bird or some large fish to a piece
of wood, and then turned it adrift upon the stream. Scarcely had the
Cayman perceived his victim than he slowly and cautiously approached,
without even rippling the surface of the water, and then curving his
back, hurled his prey, by a stroke of his tail, into his wide-extended
jaws.
On the American streams, the stillness of the night is often
interrupted by the clacking of the Cayman’s teeth, and the lashing of
his tail upon the waters. The singular and awful sound of his voice
can also readily be distinguished from that of all the other beasts of
the wilderness. It is like a suppressed sigh, bursting forth all of a
sudden, and so loud as to be heard above a mile off. First, one emits
this horrible noise; then another answers him; and far and wide the
repetition of the sound proclaims that the Caymen are awake. When these
hideous creatures have once tasted the flesh of man, they are said,
like the cannibals of the Feejee Islands, to prefer it to that of any
animal.
During Humboldt’s stay at Angostura, a monstrous Cayman seized an
Indian by the leg while he was busy pushing his boat ashore in a
shallow lagune, and immediately dragged him down into the deeper
water. The cries of the unfortunate victim soon attracted a large
number of spectators, who witnessed the astonishing courage with which
he searched in his pocket for a knife. Not finding a weapon, he then
seized the reptile by the head, and pressed his fingers into its eyes--
a method which saved Mungo Park’s negro from a similar fate. In this
case, however, the monster did not let go his hold, but disappearing
under the surface with the Indian, came up again with him as soon as he
was drowned, and dragged the body to a neighbouring island.
‘One Sunday evening,’ says Waterton, ‘some years ago, as I was walking
with Don Felipe de Yriarte, Governor of Angostura, on the bank of the
Orinoco--“Stop here a minute or two, Don Carlos,” said he to me,
“while I recount a sad accident. One fine evening, last year, as the
people of Angostura were sauntering up and down in the Alameda, I was
within twenty yards of this place, when I saw a large Cayman rush out
of the river, seize a man, and carry him down, before anybody had
it in his power to assist him. The screams of the poor fellow were
terrible, as the Cayman was running off with him. He plunged into the
river with his prey; we instantly lost sight of him, and never saw or
heard him more.”’
Humboldt also relates that, during the inundations of the Orinoco,
alligators will sometimes make their appearance in the very streets of
Angostura, where they have been known to attack and drag away a human
prey.
Even among each other, these ferocious animals frequently engage in
deadly conflict. Thus, Richard Schomburgk once saw a prodigiously
large Cayman seize one of a smaller species (_Champsa vallifrons_) by
the middle of the body, so that the head and tail projected on both
sides of its muzzle. Now both of them disappeared under the surface,
so that only the agitated waters of the otherwise calm river announced
the death-struggle going on beneath; and then again the monsters
reappeared, wildly beating the surface; so that it was hardly possible
to distinguish here a tail, or there a monstrous head, in the seething
whirlpool. At length, however, the tumult subsided, and the large
Cayman was seen leisurely swimming to a sand-bank, where he immediately
began to feed upon his prey.
The same traveller relates an interesting example of the Cayman’s
tenacity of life. One of them having been wounded with a strong
harpoon, was dragged upon a sand-bank. Here the rays of the sun seemed
to infuse new life into the monster, for, awakening from his death-like
torpidity, he suddenly snapped about him with such rage that Schomburgk
and his assistants thought it prudent to retreat to a safer distance.
Seizing a long and mighty pole, the bravest of the Indians now went
towards the Cayman, who awaited the attack with wide-extended jaws,
and plunged the stake deep into his maw--a morsel which the brute did
not seem to relish. Meanwhile two other Indians approached him from
behind, and kept striking him with thick clubs upon the extremity of
the tail. At every blow upon this sensitive part, the monster bounded
in the air and extended his frightful jaws, which were each time
immediately regaled with a fresh thrust of the pole. After a long and
furious battle, the Cayman, who measured twelve feet in length, was at
last slain. Another remarkable instance of the vitality of the common
crocodile is mentioned by Sir E. Tennent. A gentleman at Galle having
caught on a baited hook an unusually large one, it was disembowelled by
his coolies, the aperture in the stomach being left expanded by a stick
placed across it. On returning, in the afternoon, with a view to secure
the head, they found that the creature had crawled for some distance,
and made its escape into the water.
We all know the intense hatred which sailors bear to the shark, and
with what savage delight they drag one on board, and hack him to pieces
with their knives before life is extinct; but the American Indian is
a no less inveterate enemy of the Cayman, and, when occasion offers,
lets him feel the full extent of his inventive cruelty. Among the
Javanese, on the contrary, we find the crocodile considered as a sacred
animal, on account of his clearing the rivers and lagunes of putrefying
substances; and the friendship even seems to be reciprocal, as Bennett
saw Javanese convicts busy working up to their middle in water, quite
near the monsters.
Like the sea-turtles, the crocodiles generally deposit their eggs,
which are about the size of those of a goose, and covered with a
calcareous shell, in holes made in the sand, leaving them to be hatched
by the warm rays of the tropical sun. In some parts of America,
however, they have been observed to resort to a more ingenious method,
denoting a degree of provident instinct which could hardly have been
expected in a cold-blooded reptile. Raising a small hillock on the
banks of the river, and hollowing it out in the middle, they collect a
quantity of leaves and other vegetable matters, in which they deposit
their eggs. These are covered with the leaves, and are hatched by the
heat extricated during their putrefaction, along with that of the
atmosphere.
Callous to every other generous sentiment, the female Cayman continues
for some time after their birth to watch over her young with great
care. One day, as Richard Schomburgk, accompanied by an Indian, was
busy fishing on the banks of the Essequibo, he suddenly heard in the
water a strange noise, resembling the mewing of young cats. With eager
curiosity he climbed along the trunk of a tree overhanging the river,
about three feet above the water, and saw beneath him a brood of young
alligators, about a foot and a half long. On his seizing and lifting
one of them out of the water, the mother, a creature of prodigious
size, suddenly emerged with an appalling roar, making desperate efforts
to reach her wriggling and screeching offspring, and increasing in rage
every time Schomburgk tantalised her by holding it out to her. Having
been wounded with an arrow, she retired for a few moments, and then
again returned with redoubled fury, lashing the waters into foam by the
repeated strokes of her tail. Schomburgk now cautiously retreated, as
in case of a fall into the water below, he would have had but little
reason to expect a friendly reception, the monster pertinaciously
following him to the bank, but not deeming it advisable to land, as
here it seemed to feel its helplessness. The scales of the captured
young one were quite soft and pliable, as it was only a few days old,
but it already had the peculiar musk-like smell which characterises the
full-grown reptile.
The sight of the first crocodile he meets with, lying on a flat
sand-bank of the Nile, is a great event in the traveller’s life
in Egypt. With all the eagerness of curiosity he first seizes his
telescope to have a look at the monster, and then his gun, to drive,
if possible, a bullet through its harnessed skin. But long before the
enemy approaches, the wary reptile creeps slowly into the river, and
plunging into the water, mocks all further pursuit. If the sportsman
wishes to become better acquainted with the leviathan, he must wander
farther to the South. The thousands of crocodile mummies piled up in
the pits of Monfaloot, prove that in ancient times the dreaded reptile
must have been common in the land of the Pharaohs; at present this can
only be affirmed of the Sudan, where one may reckon with certainty
upon finding a crocodile upon every sand-bank of the two Niles. The
favourite resorts of the crocodile are quiet places in the rivers,
where it can bask undisturbed in the sun; the cataracts it seems are
not to its taste. It is no lover of change, for old men affirm that
since their childhood they have seen the same crocodile invariably make
its appearance upon the same island, nor is there reason to doubt their
word, as the reptile attains an extreme old age. A life of a hundred
years is exceptional with man, with the crocodile it is probably but a
part of its existence. At its birth the animal issues from an egg not
bigger than that of a goose; it grows very slowly like all amphibia,
and yet reaches the enormous length of twenty feet. When bursting
its shell it is scarce nine inches long; after a year it attains
the double, sometimes the triple length, and then grows slower. On
comparing the full-grown with the new-born crocodile, one can hardly
conceive how this neat little creature can ever expand to such a size.
In spite of its unwieldy appearance, the crocodile is by no means
awkward in its movements. The web uniting the four toes of its hind
feet, and its long oar-like tail, enable it to catch fish without
difficulty, but also on land it is far from being slow. According to
Brehm, an excellent observer, it moves in every direction with the
greatest ease, and is able to turn in a circle, the diameter of which
is about equal to its length--so that running backwards and forwards,
so warmly recommended by the inventors of fables, as the best means to
escape the reptile, would hardly be of use. Fortunately, the crocodile
on land never gives occasion to show the fallacy of this method, as it
invariably runs away at the approach of man. During his journeys in
Fassokl, Dr. Penney disturbed a crocodile which had hidden itself in a
heap of dried leaves. The animal fled at the approach of the riders,
and ran bellowing in a direct line to the river, which was several
miles distant. It was impossible to come up to it with the swiftest
dromedaries.
The chief food of the gigantic reptile consists of fishes, but
nothing living, which it can reach and master, comes amiss to its
voracity. Land animals it generally surprises while drinking. Slowly
it approaches, swimming under the surface of the water; then suddenly
darts its head forward, seizes its prey, drags it into the water, and
leisurely devours it, though as some believe not before the carcass is
in a certain state of putrefaction. Its human victims are generally
those whom it seizes while wading into the river to fetch water. The
dogs in the neighbourhood of the Nile hate and fear the crocodile.
While a dog born in the interior of the country will approach the
stream without any signs of shyness, the others are extremely cautious,
drink quickly, having all the time an attentive eye upon the water.
Their hatred shows itself in their rage at sight of a great lizard.
But the natives also testify on every occasion their but too
well-founded fear of the harnessed monster, for in all Sudan there is
not a village on the banks of the two rivers which has not to deplore
the loss of more than one of its inhabitants from the insidious attack
of the crocodile.
According to the natives, the hideous reptile possesses a true
friend in a small bird (_Hyas Ægyptiacus_), called by the Arabs
Rhafihr-el-Timsach, or the ‘crocodile’s guardian’--a not inappropriate
name, though the bird performs the part of a guardian not from any
friendly feeling but accidentally. It lives on the islands and flat
banks of the Nile and its tributaries, and being extremely swift has
no reason to fear the crocodile. It runs without the least hesitation
over the back of the sleeping monster, feeds on the leeches and
water-insects that may have settled there, and seems to consider it
as harmless as a log of wood. Its habit of uttering a piercing cry at
the sight of man betrays his approach to the crocodile, who generally
awakes and creeps into the water.
The young of the crocodiles have no less numerous enemies than those
of the snakes. Many an egg is destroyed in the hot sand by small
carnivora, or birds, before it can be hatched; and as soon as the young
creep out of the broken shell, and instinctively move to the waters,
the herons, cranes and other long-legged wading birds gobble up many
of them, so that their span of life is short indeed. In the water they
are not only the prey of various sharp-toothed fishes, but even of
the males of their own species, while the females do all they can to
protect them. Even man not only kills the crocodile in self-defence,
or for the sake of sport, but for the purpose of regaling upon its
flesh. In the Siamese markets, crocodiles, large and small, may be seen
hanging in the butchers’ stalls; and Captain Stokes,[30] who more than
once supped off alligators’ steaks, informs us that the meat is by no
means bad.
According to one of those zoological fables which by frequent
repetition usurp the authority of facts, the Ichneumon or Pharaoh’s
Rat, a small animal closely resembling the weasel tribe, is supposed
to be the most dangerous enemy of the full grown crocodile. It is
said to creep into the maw of the unwieldy reptile when asleep, to
penetrate into its stomach, to tear its heart, and then with its sharp
teeth to cut its way out of the dead Leviathan’s body. In plain truth
the Ichneumon is a far more dangerous enemy to rats, mice, lizards,
snakes and little birds, than to the huge crocodile, and instead of
being esteemed for his imaginary service as he is supposed to have
been by the ancient Egyptians, is detested by the fellah as the active
plunderer of his pigeon cots and hen roosts. A similar fable relates
that in the rivers of America, a tortoise of the genus Cinyxis, after
having been swallowed by the alligator, and thanks to its shelly case
arriving unharmed in its stomach, eats its way out again with its sharp
beak, thus putting the monster to an excruciating death.
I have already mentioned, in the chapter on the Llanos, that in many
tropical countries the aridity of the dry season produces a similar
torpidity in reptile life to that which is caused by the cold of winter
in the higher latitudes. In Ceylon, when the tanks become exhausted,
the marsh-crocodiles are sometimes encountered wandering in search of
water in the jungle; but generally, during the extreme drought, they
bury themselves in the sand, where they remain in a state of torpor,
till released by the recurrence of the rains. Sir Emerson Tennent,
whilst riding across the parched bed of a tank, was shown the recess,
still bearing the form and impress of the crocodile, out of which
the animal had been seen to emerge the day before. A story was also
related to him of an officer who, having pitched his tent in a similar
position, had been 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.
Like the rattlesnake, crocodiles seem to possess the power of
fascinating their prey, or rather of completely depriving their victims
of all presence of mind, by the terror which they inspire. In Sumatra,
Marsden once saw a large crocodile in a river, looking up to an
overhanging tree, on which a number of small monkeys were sitting. The
poor creatures were so beside themselves for fright, that instead of
escaping to the land, which they might easily have done, they hurried
towards the extremities of the branches, and at length fell into the
water, where the dreadful monster was awaiting them.
Crocodiles sometimes indulge in strange wanderings. Chamisso mentions
one having been drifted to Eap, one of the Carolines, where it was
killed after having devoured a woman; and about thirty years ago, the
inhabitants of one of the Feejee Islands were equally astonished and
alarmed at seeing a large crocodile emerge from the lagune, and lazily
creep on shore. At first they took it for some marine deity; but it
soon proved that its visit was not of a beneficent nature, as it seized
and devoured nine of them at various intervals. After many unavailing
attempts to destroy the monster, it was at length caught with a sling
passed over the bough of a large tree, the other end of the rope being
held at a distance by fourteen men who lay concealed, while one of the
party offered himself as a bait to entice the reptile to run into the
snare. Captain Fitzroy (‘Voyage of the Beagle’), who relates the fact,
supposes that the animal must have been drifted all the way from the
East Indies--a voyage which, in fact, is not more surprising than to
see a turtle land upon the shores of the North Sea, or a sperm whale
flounder about in the Thames.
Like many other of the lower animals, the crocodile, when surprised,
endeavours to save himself by feigning death. Sir Emerson Tennent
relates an amusing anecdote of one that was found sleeping several
hundred yards from the water. ‘The terror of the poor wretch was
extreme when he awoke and found himself discovered and completely
surrounded. He was a hideous creature, and evidently of prodigious
strength, had he been in a condition to exert it; but consternation
completely paralysed him. He started to his feet, and turned round in
a circle, hissing and clacking his bony jaws, with his ugly green eye
intently fixed upon us. On being struck, he lay perfectly quiet and
apparently dead. Presently he looked round cunningly, and made a rush
towards the water; but on a second blow he lay again motionless. We
tried to rouse him, but without effect; pulled his tail, slapped his
back, struck his hard scales, and teased him in every way, but all in
vain: nothing would induce him to move, till, accidentally, my son, a
boy of twelve years old, tickled him gently under the arm, and in an
instant he drew it close to his side, and turned to avoid a repetition
of the experiment. Again he was touched under the other arm, and the
same emotion was exhibited, the great monster twisting about like an
infant to avoid being tickled.’
[Illustration: HUMMING-BIRDS.]