The crocodile-wizard is sometimes credited with the power of calling the crocodile-folk together, and of discovering a man-eater among them, and an eye-witness lately described to me the scene on one such occasion. A Malay had been carried off and devoured by a crocodile at Larut, and a Batu Bara man, who went by the sobriquet of Nakhoda Hassan, undertook to discover the culprit. Sprinkling some of the usual sacrificial rice-paste (tepong tawar) and "saffron" rice upon the surface of the river, he called out in loud tones to the various tribes of crocodiles in the river, and summoned them to appear on the surface. My informant declares that not less than eight or ten crocodiles actually appeared, whereupon the Pawang commanded them all to return to the bottom with the exception of the one which was guilty. In a few moments only one crocodile remained on the surface, and this one, on being forthwith killed and cut open, was found to contain the garments of the unfortunate man who had been captured by it. Similar stories of the prowess of crocodile charmers are told by the Javanese. [500] I shall now proceed to describe the methods and ceremonies used for the catching of crocodiles. The following is a description by Mr. J. H. M. Robson, of Selangor, of the most usual method, at all events in Selangor, but it would appear from remarks upon the subject in Dr. Denys' work, that live as well as dead bait is commonly used:-- "A small piece of hard wood, about 6 in. or 8 in. long, and about three-quarters of an inch thick, is sharpened at both ends, and to the middle of this the end of a yard of twine is firmly fastened, the twine having about a dozen strands just held together by say a couple of knots, so as to prevent the crocodile from biting it through, as the strands simply get between his teeth; to the other end of this twine is fastened a single uncut rattan, at least 20 feet long, which can be only a quarter of an inch in diameter, but may with advantage be a little bigger; a small stick affixed to the end of the line, to act as a visible float, completes this part of the gear. Probably a crocodile will eat anything, but he is certainly partial to chicken--at least that bait is always successful in the Sepang river--so, having killed some sort of fowl, the body is cut right through the breast lengthways from head to tail, and the small piece of pointed hard wood inserted, and the bird bound up again with string. Next, two pieces of light wood are nailed together, forming a small floating platform about a foot square, and on this the fowl is placed, raised on miniature trestles. The small platform thus furnished is placed in a likely spot near the bank, and the rattan line is hitched over a small branch or a stake, so that the bait platform may not be carried away by the tide. By the next morning the rattan line, bait and platform may all have disappeared, which probably means that the crocodile,