Years gone by a huge log of pencil cedar had been cast among the boulders at Panjoo, and as I looked at the log "Paddy" with a start indicated the presence of a novelty--a crocodile apparently in repose, with its head in the shadow of a boulder. I was carrying a pea rifle more for company than for anything else; for "Paddy," though of a most cheerful disposition, never made remarks. His conversation for the most part was compounded of eloquent looks and expressive gestures. A monosyllable to him was a laborious sentence; four or five words a speech. Once upon a time, it is said, a youthful German inadvertently blundered into a railway carriage reserved for Moltke. The glare of the great man brought three words of respectful apology for the intrusion. The great man exclaimed with an air of exasperated boredom--"Insufferable talker!"--of course, all in German. "Paddy," like Moltke, was, averse from speech, unless when speech was absolutely vital. The presence of a 10-foot crocodile of unknowledgeable ferocity was a vital occasion. We hastily discussed in staccato whispers our plan of campaign. It was arranged that we should assail the enemy at close quarters. The calibre of the rifle was 22; its velocity most humble, the bullet of soft lead. Unless it entered the eye of the crocodile, and thence by luck its small brain, there was no hope of fatal effects. Yet to take home such a rare trophy as a crocodile's skull, never before known or heard of on the island, was a hope sufficient to evoke and steady the instincts to be called upon as a necessary preliminary. "Paddy" armed himself with weighty stones, and so manoeuvring to cut off the creature's retreat to the sea, we silently and with the utmost caution advanced. Here let me advise readers to call to memory Nathaniel Parker Willis's poem, "The Declaration" beginning-- 'Twas late, and the gay company was gone, And light lay soft on the deserted room, and ending: She had been asleep. The crocodile moved not as we, thirsting for its blood, stealthily approached. Then as I raised the rifle "Paddy" tilted up his much-flattened nose, sniffed, and in tragic whisper said--"Dead!" At all times a crocodile has a characteristic odour, a combination of fish and very sour and stale musk, but Paddy smelt more than the familiar scent--the scent of carrion. Most unworthy of mortals, we had found the rarest of unprecious things--a crocodile that had died a natural death. Apparently a day, or at the most a day and a half, had elapsed since the creature had laid its head under the shadow of the boulder and died, far from accustomed haunts and kin. There was no sign of wound, bruise or putrefying sore. All the teeth were perfect. It seemed like a crocodile taking its rest, with its awful stench around it.