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, with333 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.
ALLIGATOR.
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
334 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 it335 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 mentioned336 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, a337 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 ............