Carmichel in Zimbabwe: The Croc That Wouldn’t Croak

This story, “The Croc That Wouldn’t Croak,” appeared in the May 1975 issue of Outdoor Life.

The horror story began when we headed our 16-foot fiberglass inboard/outboard runabout into the mouth of the Senkwi River and quietly cruised upstream. The Senkwi has another name — a long African name that I can neither spell nor pronounce. But, when translated, it tells of a fearsome god that dwells where there is no sun and whose slobber is filled with such deadly creatures that everything it touches is killed and devoured. The legend behind the name tells how the god’s deadly slobber gushes out of the earth and flows from a mountain, spreading death across the land, until it meets and is conquered by the benevolent god of the Zambezi River.

The river of death no longer flows into the mighty Zambezi but into Lake Kariba, which was formed by the damming of the Zambezi, but the putrid waters that spill into the man-made sea are still full of the devil’s own creatures.

Beyond the first bend in the river of death, the world transforms itself into the prehistoric. Trees do not bloom or bear leaf, having been raped by a blight that twisted them into bare roosts for sulking vultures and carrion-eating water birds. Great shaggy nests of dead grass, as large as a native hut, sag from the gnarled snags of tree limbs, and long-beaked birds cry out with cackling wails.

Little vegetation grew along the river. The banks were mostly bare earth and mud, dotted with shapeless stone and rimmed with a rock wall, all blending into a brown landscape. There was no game, but we knew that wild animals had been there at one time because skulls and other bones lay scattered along the banks as if a recent flood had cleansed the river’s depths of its dead.

Such a place demands silence and little was said as we slowly cruised upstream. Oomo and Jason, the two black Africans who normally smiled and talked to each other continuously, were silent and watchful, and clearly apprehensive, without knowing why. Neither of them lived nearby and they had not heard the legend of the river. Soon, though, they would have their own story of the river to tell their grandchildren. Before the safari ended, both told me that they would never go up that river again.

As we rounded each bend in the river, there was a splash a few hundred yards ahead and a quiet ripple radiated from shore.

“Crocs,” our professional hunter Mike Rowbotham would say, his voice tight.

I’d seen crocodiles before in Sudan’s Nile swamps and in French Equatorial Africa. In Botswana, I had witnessed an ear-shattering battle between a croc and a baboon. The baboon’s troop mates had viciously attacked the crocodile but the hard-scaled reptile never loosened its jawlock on the unfortunate primate. It simply slid beneath the water and that was the end of the baboon.

The crocodiles that I’d seen before had never impressed me as being especially wary, but these crocs were so wild that there was little chance of getting a good look at one before it slid into the water and disappeared.

“Are they always this wild?” I asked Mike.

“Oh yes,” he answered, “they’re spooky. It’s tough to get a shot at one. They’re more wary than any game animal.”

That did it. Until that moment, I’d never had any real desire to hunt crocodiles, but learning that they were hard to bag presented a challenge.

“Mike, I’ve got to shoot a croc,” I announced. He raised his eyebrows for a long moment and then gazed into the deathly green water as if silently struggling with himself. Then the cloud passed from his face and he grinned with characteristic good humor.

“OK, Jim, we’ll get one.”

Upstream, a silent form stirred the water’s surface for an instant and then disappeared, radiating ripples across the slow current.

It was June of 1984, wintertime south of the equator, and I was on safari in Zimbabwe, the game-rich African nation once known as Rhodesia. My hunting pal was Jack Atcheson, the North American outfitter. Our professional hunter was the well-known Mike Rowbotham, operator of Hunter’s Tracks PTY, a leading safari outfitter.

Jack and I wanted better-than-average trophies and, during the preceding few weeks, he and I had been hunting in South Africa, where we had taken half a dozen contenders for Rowland Ward’s Records of Big Game, including the shy, bush-dwelling nyala antelope. Now, we were hunting leopard, kudu, and reedbuck, which tend to grow especially big in northern Zimbabwe. I had already killed a better-than-good Cape buffalo, and part of it had been hung for leopard bait. Sometimes it takes a few days for the baits to get ripe enough to appeal to a leopard, so we were passing the days looking for the odd trophy or cruising Lake Kariba’s shores and watching the herds of elephants that came to drink and socialize.

The day after our first trip up the Senkwi River, the weather turned chill and remained cool for several days, spoiling our chances of finding a crocodile in a shootable position. More at home in the water than on land, they come ashore mainly to bask in the sun. But with the sun hidden by clouds and the air cooler than normal, they cradled themselves in the warmth of the sluggish river.

Several times that week, we saw crocs in the water — as many as a dozen at a time. Their snouts and eyes barely broke the water’s surface and they looked like floating slabs of rotten wood. A few times, I was only a couple of feet from the creatures, and a killing shot through the eye and into the brain would have been simple. But shooting a croc in the water is usually a waste because they will sink immediately and no one wants to go diving for a crocodile in its home territory.

While we were watching a group of floating crocs, an unsuspecting coot landed in their midst and swam toward one of the motionless snouts. What happened next is as difficult to describe as the speed with which darkness fills a room when the light is switched off. The water boiled for an instant and then there was nothing but a gentle whirlpool. The coot simply vanished.

Despite their sharp, interlocking teeth, each one as long and as thick as a man’s thumb, crocodiles do not kill by biting or chewing their victims. The teeth are only a means of taking a grip on the prey. Crocs kill larger animals by rolling over and over in the water. The fantastic turbulence and wrenching tears flesh and breaks bones until the dead or nearly dead victim goes down the crocodile’s gullet. They don’t chew their food and don’t need to because their powerful gastric juices digest the meal very quickly. With smaller creatures, the croc simply gets a good grip and submerges, drowning the prey — or the jaws may kill instantly when the croc takes hold.

A more efficient and more remorseless killing machine does not exist in all of nature. So precisely honed are their killing techniques and instincts that millions of years have wrought no evolutionary improvements.

A more efficient and more remorseless killing machine does not exist in all of nature. So precisely honed are their killing techniques and instincts that millions of years have wrought no evolutionary improvements. They are as they were at the dawn of creation — as patient, as watchful, as swift, and just as incapable of pity.

By comparison, even the great white shark is second-class. The croc is infinitely more efficient because it thinks about killing, and uses practiced stealth to catch its victims. And it can do this on land as well as in the water. A crocodile can sprint fast enough to grab an antelope before the victim gets up speed enough to escape.

Morning and evening we checked our leopard baits, but the only trophy taken was a tremendous record-class kudu bull that Jack Atcheson shot after a long and determined stalk. After nearly a week of slow hunting, dawn was clear with a promise of a warm day. While checking a leopard bait hung near the top of a rock ledge, we spotted a huge kudu bull on the thickly brushed plain below and, after a nerve-rasping game of hide and seek, I finally got a shot. It was my biggest kudu ever and the kill put the whole camp in a festive mood.

By noon, the temperature was in the 70s and the day was right for crocodile hunting.

“How about it, Mike?” I asked over lunch. “Today’s my lucky day. Let’s go back up that weird river and try to bust one of those crocs.”

For a moment, Mike looked grim as he considered the possibilities. Then he shrugged off whatever was bothering him, grinned, and said it was a great day to kill a croc.

Knowing from past experience that it was useless to try approaching sunning crocodiles on the bank in a boat, we worked out a simple plan. We left Jason downstream with the boat and the rest of us skirted the river on foot. By staying hidden behind the standing snags and logs that lay along the river’s bank, we hoped to stalk within range.

The plan worked perfectly. After a mile or so of skirting the river, we topped a low hill and found ourselves looking down on a marshy floodplain. At first, the place seemed void of life but, after a quick look, Mike crouched behind the rotted shell of a tree and motioned all of us to do likewise. I peered cautiously from behind a stump through binoculars and spotted a sleeping croc, then another, and another. Lying along the opposite bank, there must have been 12 or 15. They were so hard to see because the sun had dried their hides so that they blended perfectly with the foul, black river mud. Their hides were not rich and glossy like a crocodile handbag but dull and caked with mud and slimy moss. They were hideously ugly but possessed a hypnotic quality that made it difficult not to look at them.

Some professional hunters become so obsessed by hunting crocodiles that they neglect their families, friends, and businesses for months at a time. If a man must fight inner demons, no symbol of them is more fitting than the crocodile.

Mike crawled to the stump where I was hiding and whispered, “If we all try to get closer, one of the crocs will spot us and spook the lot. Jack and I will stay here while you try to get close enough for a shot. Take your time and stay low. Remember-you have to bust the brain with the first shot or the croc will be in the water in a flash.”

The usual advice about bullet placement on a crocodile is, “Hit him behind the smile.” A croc’s mouth ends in an upward crook that looks like a cruel smile. This crook is more or less on a vertical line with the eye. Somewhere along this line is what passes for a brain — a target not much bigger than a walnut. If you study a croc’s head, you’ll see that there isn’t much space for a brain. The entire skull was designed for killing, not for thinking. Hitting a big crocodile anywhere except the brain is pretty much a wasted effort. Unless you can blow one apart with a howitzer, the croc’s reaction to a body shot will be almost no reaction at all. It takes death a long time to catch up with a reptile so, despite the crocodile’s considerable size, the only vulnerable spot is a tiny target that has to be hit just right or the animal will be lost to die later at the bottom of the water.

I had only one rifle on this safari, a custom-made .338 Winchester Magnum built on a ’98 Mauser action by the David Miller Company of Tucson, Arizona. This masterpiece has become my favorite big-game rifle because it never changes zero. The first shot is always dead on target if I do my part. My handload was a 250-grain Nosier Partition bullet over 69 grains of 4350 and a CCl Magnum primer. This combination churns up about 2,550 fps at the muzzle, more than enough horsepower to punch the Nosier bullet all the way through a Cape buffalo. It had done just that earlier on this safari.

Crawling on the hard-baked earth, I zigzagged from stump to stump until I was within about 200 yards of the sleeping crocodiles. There I found a tree carcass big enough to hide behind. After getting into a sitting position, I slipped the rifle’s sling behind my elbow and pulled it tight. By resting the rifle alongside the dead tree, the rifle was so steady that the crosshairs scarcely jiggled as they settled on the nearest crocodile’s head.

“Hold on,” I told myself, “take your time and get a real trophy.”

Until then, I hadn’t given much thought to what a trophy crocodile should look like. They don’t have antlers or tusks like an elephant or a mane like a lion, so how do you judge? The only difference — so far as I could see — was sheer body size, so I resolved to shoot the biggest one. That turned out to be a simple choice because the one that lay at the river’s edge with its tail still in the water was easily twice as big as any of the others. Luckily, the biggest croc was also the closest and lying broadside so that I had a clear view of its grim smile. For a moment, the crosshairs vibrated on the crocodile’s head; then they were still and the bullet crossed the river.

Slipping my fingers between the teeth, I got a grip on the jagged upper jaw and heaved it wide. Teeth rimmed the mouth like spikes of broken glass imbedded in the top of a wall.

The big croc’s tail violently lashed the water a time or two and then was dead still. The only motion I could see was a growing spot of thin red behind the smile.

“Well done, Jim. That’s one more good croc,” Mike said as he joined me.

He studied the beast through his dusty binoculars to make doubly sure it was dead.

“Oomo, run back and fetch Jason and the boat,” he called, “let’s see if we can get that devil back to camp.”

A half-hour later, during which the croc had not twitched, we crossed the river in the boat and I had my first close-up look at my trophy. It was absolutely incredible. No animal I’ve ever bagged or seen was as awesome.

“It’s one of the biggest crocs I’ve ever seen,” Mike exclaimed.

That’s when I realized I had shot a monster croc.

“This is unbelievable,” I said. “I think it’s the best trophy I’ve ever taken — better even than an elephant with 100-pound tusks.”

The croc measured 14 ½ feet from nose tip to tail tip and taped more than 16 feet over the curves.

With Jack’s video camera recording the scene, I walked around the beast, lifting and flexing its prehistoric feet, not believing, even with the evidence before me, that such a creature could exist, now or at any time. There was no bullet hole in the skull, only an inch-long crack where the .338 slug had blasted its way toward the brain. Incredibly, there was no exit wound. The same load that could drill completely through a Cape buffalo had been stopped by the crocodile’s head.

“Open its mouth so I can get a shot of the teeth,” Jack requested, aiming his camera at the creature’s blunt snout.

Slipping my fingers between the teeth, I got a grip on the jagged upper jaw and heaved it wide. Teeth rimmed the mouth like spikes of broken glass imbedded in the top of a wall. The mouth’s lining was white and fleshy, like that of a snake. The whiteness was spotted by watery reptile blood. The throat was choked by a clotting puddle of blood, dripping from the place where its brain had been. Even in death, the crocodile looked as though it still possessed a will to kill.

“Now that you’ve got the beast in hand, what do you plan to do with it?” Mike asked. “I want the hide tanned and mounted with the head on,” was my quick answer.

“If I can’t get it in my house, I’ll leave it outside to scare away stray dogs and peddlers.”

“Well, the thing must weigh three-quarters of a ton. We’ll have to tow it back to camp with the boat,” Mike said.

“Too risky, Mike. I don’t want to lose it,” I told him. “We’ve got to figure out a way to get it in the boat, even if we have to skin it here.”

“I think we can get the whole thing in the boat,” Jack said. “I’ve been manhandling elk and moose for years and I know a couple of tricks that might help us get the croc into the boat.”

With Jack directing, we cut stout poles and, with two men to the pole, we levered the croc out of its slimy bed. After considerable grunting and cussing in a variety of languages, we heaved the croc’s head and forelegs over the boat’s bow. The massive head was too slippery to grasp, so Mike rigged a rope bridle around the head and snout that provided secure handholds. As it turned out, that was about the only smart thing we did all afternoon.

When the crocodile was about halfway in the boat, we relaxed our grip for a moment to take a breather before the final heave. At that moment, the massive body expanded as if it were taking a deep breath, and the rear legs reached out in a jerky spasm. For a moment, the feet ripped at the air but then the claws caught the gunnel of the boat. With incredible strength, the croc forced its mass into the boat, leaving only the six-foot tail dangling over the bow. Then it was still again.

I think I was the first to speak

 “Reptiles often do that,” I said. “The nervous system doesn’t get the message that it is dead for hours after the fact. That’s why frogs’ legs kick in the skillet.”

Jack and Mike agreed with my assessment, but the two Africans didn’t seem at all convinced.

“Well, anyway, it was nice of the croc to help out. It saved us a lot of sweat,” Mike said. “Let’s get the tail in somehow and shove off for camp.”

The crocodile’s bulk almost completely filled the bow section and its snout filled the two-foot-wide walkway in the forward bulkhead on which the boat’s steering wheel was mounted. There wasn’t room to tuck the croc’s tail in the bow compartment, so we bent it in a curve and secured it with a rope, and pulled it more or less aboard. Then a new problem presented itself. The great weight forward almost put the bow underwater. A few inches lower and the boat would sink.

This problem was eased to some extent when the five of us climbed into the rear of the boat, leveling it to some degree, though the boat floated bow down until we gained enough speed to lift it. More or less level, we cruised down the river into the vastness of Lake Kariba.

Even with the added weight slowing the boat, I figured that we would make it to camp before dark. There was nothing to worry about and there were plenty of camp workers to unload the crocodile. After sundowners and a warm shower to wash away the stinking river slime, we’d have a good time at dinner telling crocodile stories.

The first sign of serious trouble was a small but steady stream of water that rippled around our feet on the deck from bow to stern. My guess was that the trickle was only water flowing out. of the crocodile and that it would eventually stop but, a few minutes later, the trickle became a tide. I went forward and crawled over the crocodile to find out where the water was coming from. I discovered that both bow storage wells were flooded and overflowing, apparently by water washing under the gunnel cowling.

I sat on the engine cowling, holding my rifle, and studying the hideous design of the crocodile’s head. And one eye opened.

Jason was running the boat and, when I announced what was happening, his reaction was to slow the engine. Deprived of its planing lift, the boat’s bow dived beneath the waves and we would have sunk right there had it not been for Mike. He grabbed the throttle from the terrified Jason and punched the engine to full power. The bow lifted just an inch or two above the lake’s surface. But even then we still had one hell of a problem. We were a half mile from shore in a rapidly sinking boat. Could we make it? I didn’t think we could and began a mental inventory of options.

The whole problem, of course, was the crocodile, but there was no possibility of getting it out of the boat in the time we had left. The two Africans were in utter panic and probably couldn’t swim. Were there life jackets aboard, I wondered. Clearly, Jack would lose his expensive video equipment. The depths would also claim my David Miller rifle, worth at least $5,000, and Mike’s double-barreled Charles Boswell rifle, worth more thousands. What bothered me most, more than the boat, the rifles, and the equipment, was that I would lose the crocodile. I really wanted that crocodile.

I didn’t look at the shore, only at the water as it crept up over the gunnels and splashed inside, and at Mike’s hand on the throttle. He was wringing the last foot-pound of energy from the overloaded engine. We couldn’t make it, I knew, but now I could see the bottom of the lake — five feet deep, three feet — maybe we could make it! We made it! The boat crunched to a stop on the gravel shore, the engine still screaming.

A half-hour later, with the boat bailed dry, we nervously eased back into the main channel and headed for home camp. Not much was said about what had happened. We all knew how close we had been to disaster, possibly even tragedy and, when you come that close, there isn’t much to say. I sat on the engine cowling, holding my rifle, and studying the hideous design of the crocodile’s head.

And one eye opened.

Considering the scare that we’d just had, the idea of a live crocodile in the boat struck me as hilarious. The situation was made even more ridiculous by Jason’s proximity to the croc. No more than 10 inches separated the monster’s teeth from Jason.

“Look, Jason,” I said, pointing at the open eye and already laughing at what I thought the African’s reaction would be.

For a long moment, Jason didn’t react at all. He just stood there regarding the red, glowing orb with all the solemn detachment of a cow pondering a flower. Then the crocodile’s other eye opened and Jason levitated onto the gunnel and monkey-walked aft to the farthest corner of the boat, leaving the controls untended and the throttle wide open.

I lunged for the wheel, brushing by the croc’s snout. My movement apparently aroused the croc. It lunged at me -and would surely have had my leg had it not been for the rope looped around its snout. Even so, the loop was slack enough for the croc to open its mouth about four inches, showing its ugly teeth. There was a gurgling roar, and I had no doubt that it was coming after me. Its feet scratched on the deck as it struggled to squeeze through the walkway in the bulkhead. Fortunately, it wriggled and scratched into the opening and wedged itself tighter. How long the bulkhead would have held against the croc’s overwhelming strength I can’t say but, with a final roar, the beast’s head slumped to the deck and was still, its eyes closed.

Dead at last?

Stepping cautiously, fearful of arousing the croc again, Jason returned to the boat’s controls and we moved on toward camp. The crocodile’s return from the dead had given us all a bad turn and, had there been a bottle of whiskey on board, it wouldn’t have lasted much longer than a butterfly in a blast furnace. What would have happened if the croc had demolished the bulkhead was plain enough. Even with its mouth tied, its thrashing would surely have capsized the boat. There were many ways it could kill, but perhaps it was really dead at last.

And then the boat’s engine quit. Out of gas.

There we were in the middle of Lake Kariba, our boat stopped, the sun sinking fast, and a monster crocodile onboard that wouldn’t stay dead. Happily, there was a spare can of gas, which Jason poured into the main tank. With the fuel line sucked dry, however, the engine wouldn’t fire. For tense, heart-pounding minutes, the starter motor groaned without effect and then buzzed to a stop. The battery was dead.

Oomo had found a paddle and was digging at the water with determination, but the shore was an hour or more away at our slow speed and there would be more hours of walking to camp. Hiking through the watering places of a variety of animals in the dark is not congenial exercise. There would be lions there, and leopards, elephants, and Cape buffalo. And snakes.

While I was thinking these thoughts, Jason was digging through some gear in the stern of the boat and presently made a joyous announcement: “Look! See new battery, see!”

His black face was invisible in the darkness but his smile shone like a beacon. Then Jack’s years of hunting experience came to our assistance. During all the years that I’ve known Jack, I’ve never ceased to be amazed at the things he carries in his ever-present knapsack. A flashlight I would have expected, but when he dug deep and came out with a set of battery jumper cables, we all nearly dropped our teeth. It’s hard not to like Jack Atcheson, especially at such moments.

Looking up to thank my lucky stars, I was dazzled by a shooting star and then another.

“Look Jack,” I said, “there’s a meteor shower. No, wait, those aren’t meteors, they’re stars spinning around us.”

The cause of the celestial phenomenon was Oomo at work with the paddle. Having no idea how to use a paddle, he was simply clawing at the water from one corner of the stern. This caused us to spin. We’d been so occupied with our problems that we had failed to notice the considerable rpms that Oomo had achieved.

“Knock it off, Oomo,” Mike told him. “If you want to be useful, put your mouth over the gas tank pipe and blow as hard as you can. That will force some gas into the carburetor so we can get started.”

So with Oomo balancing himself on the gunnel and blowing into the fuel tank, Jack holding the jumper cables, Jason grinding the starter, Mike cursing our luck, and me wondering where I’d gone wrong, we bobbed and drifted in the black waters of Lake Kariba. Despite Oomo’s hearty blowing, the fuel line remained empty, so we had to do something else. Our next effort was to uncover the engine, remove the air filter, and hope to fire the engine by pouring gasoline directly into the carburetor.

The instant Jack’s flashlight beam hit the monster, two things became terrifyingly clear. Its eyes were open again and the rope around its snout was gone.

Of course, this would not normally be a very smart way to deal with a sluggish engine in a crowded boat, but we had other disasters on our minds so the thought of an explosion wasn’t all that disturbing. Just to be a little safer, however, I crouched down behind the upturned engine cowling when Jason hit the starter. The engine caught for a second but sputtered and stopped.

“Pour more gas in the carburetor,” Mike ordered. “It wants to start.”

Again I crouched behind the cowling, scarcely noticing that my backside was only inches from the croc’s mouth, and again the engine sputtered and died. The effort was repeated a dozen times, each time more despairing than the last, when suddenly the fuel pump went to work and the engine rumbled to life. Again, we were off toward camp and hoping for a stiff drink and a hot, if late, meal

Surely nothing else could go wrong.

“Shine your light on the croc Jack,” I said. “Let’s see how it’s doing.”

I can’t remember exactly what made me want to see the croc just then, but I’ll never forget what happened next. The instant Jack’s flashlight beam hit the monster, two things became terrifyingly clear. Its eyes were open again and the rope around its snout was gone. Startled into instant life by the light, the crocodile roared mightily, opening its mouth wide. Bloody slime streamed out of its mouth between the teeth. Again Jason was in the stern, leaving the throttle open and the wheel untended so that we careened across the water.

“Grab the wheel, Mike,” I yelled. “I’m going to shoot the croc again.”

But as I fed a round into the rifle’s chamber, a feeling of helplessness possessed me. I couldn’t do much. I’d blown its brain to mush. Where else could I shoot it? Was it unkillable?

The only possibility was to put the muzzle behind the creature’s head and blow the spine apart. But to do that, I’d have to shoot almost straight down. If the bullet exited, would it make a big hole in the boat-big enough to sink it? The croc kept inching toward me by squeezing through the walkway in the bulkhead. I was backed against the engine cowling and could retreat no farther. The croc’s teeth were less than two feet away and coming closer.

“Shoot, shoot, shoot,” voices pleaded. Jason and Oomo were hanging over the stern, ready to let go when the monster broke through the bulkhead. They were willing to give themselves to the black lake rather than to the crocodile.

I felt like a schoolboy facing the town bully in a fight that I knew I’d lose.

“OK,” I shouted at the huge reptile, “that’s far enough. Cross this line and I’m going to shoot, no matter what.”

With the rifle’s muzzle, I traced a line six inches in front of the snapping mouth. That had a calming effect on everyone and, for a moment, even the crocodile closed its mouth and backed off a couple of inches.

“Hold the light steady, Jack,” I said. “I think I see the rope.”

There was a loop of rope under the crocodile’s chin. Could I reach it? I snagged the loop with the muzzle of the rifle and slowly worked the rope free. Finally, the rope was in my hands but was too tangled to be of any use. I untied knot after knot in the wet rope until there was enough to tie a noose. Next, I slipped the noose over the croc’s snout and used the rifle to push the rope rearward.

“Get around behind the croc’s head, Mike,” I whispered, afraid to speak loudly. “When I throw you the rope, pull it tight. That will keep its mouth closed so we can hog-tie it.”

“Just throw me the rope,” Mike answered, already scrambling around on the gunnel of the boat.

“I’ll hold the head up so it can’t open its mouth.”

And for the next half-hour, we traveled with Mike astride the giant reptile like a rodeo rider, holding its mouth closed and the head back. In camp at last, we called for reinforcements and, after considerable struggling, succeeded in locking the crocodile’s mouth closed with heavy wire.

Read Next: Carmichel in Australia: Charged by a Backwater Buffalo

News of a giant crocodile travels fast in the African bush. By noon the next day, a considerable crowd of natives had collected to see the monster. Even then, the croc was still twitching and trying to move. An old black man puffed thoughtfully at his gourd pipe and, shaking his head, spoke softly in his native tongue.

“What did he say?” I asked Mike.

“He says it takes them a long time to die.”

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