Having spotted the crocodile in question from a distance I landed on the opposite bank and, cautiously stalking it, managed to get within two hundred yards without its being alarmed. I was armed with a ·303 carbine and, aiming at its neck, luckily paralysed it by my first shot with a bullet in the spine. To make sure of it I fired several more rounds at it, then, hailing my boat, crossed over to where it lay. It feebly snapped its huge jaws at me as I approached, but was unable to move otherwise; and a final bullet laid it out. It was an old and immensely powerful brute, broad out of all proportion to its length. Its thick hide studded with bosses was like armour-plate, and over its back impenetrable to bullets. Its teeth were large and blunted and its nails long and thick. At the sound of my shots a number of natives had run out from a village close by. When they saw the _mugger_ lying dead, they streamed down to the bank and to my surprise swarmed round me, hung garlands about my neck and lauded me to the skies. I learned from them that the dead monster had closed a ford from their village to one on the other side of the river for two years, had carried off several women bathing or drawing water (this was a minor offence to the native, women being cheap in India); but, worse still, had killed several of their sacred and valuable cows. Hence my ovation. The brute was so large and heavy that it took fourteen villagers to drag and push it up an inclined plane of planks into my big native sailing-boat. We brought it down the river to the Lines of my regiment, which were built close to the bank. There we landed it and cut it open. In its stomach were seven metal anklets or armlets of different sizes, ornaments such as are worn by native women and girls, and--a horrible sight!--the entire body of a child about a year old. It was in the process of being digested; and, when exposed to the air, the flesh fell away from the bones. The stench was unforgettable. The rivers of Bengal are full of these unpleasant saurians. And crocodiles do not always confine themselves to the water; for they are reputed to have an undesirable habit of wandering across country by night from stream to stream and, if these are far apart, hiding by day in any convenient tank. I have seen a large one in quite a small pond which was rapidly drying up and would contain no water in a week. A friend of mine in the Civil Service told me that once, riding into a village in his district in Eastern Bengal, he found it in a state of commotion and the whole population gathered in front of the local post office but keeping a respectful distance from the building; for on the steps of it was a crocodile about six feet long, snapping fiercely at anyone who approached it. It must have been overtaken by daylight when passing through the village on its way from water to water. My friend shot it, to the intense relief of the besieged postal officials inside the building.