Page:Seven Years in South Africa v2.djvu/291

 when they open their jaws and let free their prey.

Unless one crocodile is assisted by another, it cannot by itself tear a fresh corpse in pieces; but it has to wait until the process of decomposition sets in, when the gaseous exhalations raise it to the surface in a condition that permits it to be torn asunder and devoured piecemeal. If a crocodile’s attention should be attracted by a fish, or anything else that seems fit for food, it will forsake its larger prey in the daytime, but only to return to it in the evening. I was told by Sepopo and by many of his people, that these reptiles are more dangerous near Sesheke than in most other parts of the kingdom. Shortly before my arrival a man had been dragged by one of them from his boat, and a boy of six years of age had been snapped up while bathing; and during my stay I heard of no less than thirty deaths that were attributed to the rapacity of these creatures.

Small crocodiles are occasionally caught by accident in the fishing-nets; the larger ones have to be captured by an arrangement of great hooks. The crocodile-tackle is very ingenious, and probably may be more easily understood from an illustration than from any verbal description. The bait which conceals the hook is covered by a net, which is attached to a strong bast rope more than twelve feet long by a number of twisted bast threads, the other end of the rope being wound round a bundle of reeds that serves as a float. It is only now and then when the casualties have been unusually numerous that the king gives orders for the tackle to be brought into use, and then the bundle of reeds is laid upon the bank; the hook is generally baited with a piece