My First Voyage to Southern SeasKingston, William Henry Giles
General
My First Voyage to Southern Seas
Kingston, William Henry Giles
Oceania -- Juvenile fiction; Voyages and travels -- Juvenile fiction
On leaving our tents the next morning, we found a strong strain on the
rope, and the natives soon collecting, a canoe was launched, and some
men getting into her, the line was made fast to her bow. No sooner did
the crocodile feel himself hauled towards the shore, than he resisted
strongly, and away spun the canoe off towards the middle of the lagoon.
The crew tugged one way and the monster the other, and now and then he
raised his fierce-looking head above the surface, clashing his jaws
together with the most horrid sound, which showed that if he once got
the canoe between them he could easily crush it and its crew.
The crocodile has no fleshy lips. All his mouth is composed of hard
bone, so that when he snaps with his teeth and jaws, it sounds exactly
as if two large pieces of hard wood had been struck together, and warns
any one of the fate they may expect if caught by them.
The natives, however, did not appear to fear him. They let him haul
away and exhaust his strength, and then once more they paddled towards
the land. Having at last carried the end of the line on shore, all
hands hauled away on it, and though he struggled vehemently, the
monster's huge snout was seen emerging from the water and gradually
approaching the dry land. No sooner, however, was he fairly on shore
than he appeared stupified, or else he was pretending to be so, that he
might have an opportunity of catching some one unawares. I was about to
go up to him to examine him more closely, when, with a terrific wag of
his huge tail, up he started and made a desperate effort to regain the
water. He was soon hauled back again, however, and Lumsden and I had to
put an end to him by sending a couple of rifle balls into his side. We
thought that we had killed him, for he lay perfectly still with his eyes
closed. We were again running up to him, when one of the natives called
us back, and another pricking him with a spear, up he started as full of
life as ever once more, making a push for the water, with the hook and
line still in his mouth. He was, however, soon brought back again, when
one of the natives pushed a long sharp spear into his neck, and drove it
home till it reached his heart. Whether or not he was the monster who
had killed the woman we could not tell. Certainly he had not swallowed
her, for on being cut open, his maw was found to contain only some
tortoises, and a quantity of gravel, and stones, and broken bricks.
Those hard substances he had swallowed to assist his digestion. The
opinion of the natives was that he certainly was not the monster who had
carried off the woman, because had he been, he would not have returned
for more food.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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