At midday we halted, and, creeping under a bush for shelter, ate our frugal meal of broiled meat, lying at full length on the ground. During the meal a whisper of “ungruwe” (pig) from Ramathani brought El Hakim to his feet. Seizing his rifle, he stepped outside and shot an old boar, who, with two or three sows, was quietly feeding about fifty yards away, utterly oblivious of our presence. His flesh was tough and tasteless, not in the least resembling pork. Several of the men came to us during the halt, to inquire how much further we were going, as they thought that we had got into the country of the “Afreets” (devils), and it would be advisable to go no further. We assured them that two or three days at most would see us at the end of our journey. The country looked so desolate and barren that I do not wonder its appearance worked on the superstitious minds of our men. We laughed at them, but they were only half reassured. We started again, and continued to follow the river, which was now not more than ten yards wide. Large crocodiles swarmed on every mud-bank, some of them immense brutes, even El Hakim declaring that he had never seen larger. One ugly reptile which started up and plunged into the water at our approach, must have been fully twenty feet long or more. El Hakim appropriately called him “the father of all crocodiles.” This loathsome reptile, with its blunt and massive snout and immense scaly body, reminded me of the “Mugger” of the ford, in one of Kipling’s stories. The largest crocodiles were dark-brown in colour, but there were multitudes of smaller ones, some bright green and others bright yellow, two of which I shot during the afternoon. When we camped that evening we built huge fires between ourselves and the water, in order to prevent the possibility of any of our party being seized during the night by the hideous reptiles.