I have already mentioned, in the chapter on the Llanos, that in many tropical countries the aridity of the dry season produces a similar torpidity in reptile life to that which is caused by the cold of winter in the higher latitudes. In Ceylon, when the tanks become exhausted, the marsh-crocodiles are sometimes encountered wandering in search of water in the jungle; but generally, during the extreme drought, they bury themselves in the sand, where they remain in a state of torpor, till released by the recurrence of the rains. Sir Emerson Tennent, whilst riding across the parched bed of a tank, was shown the recess, still bearing the form and impress of the crocodile, out of which the animal had been seen to emerge the day before. A story was also related to him of an officer who, having pitched his tent in a similar position, had been disturbed during the night by feeling a movement of the earth below his bed, from which, on the following day, a crocodile emerged, making its appearance from beneath the matting. Like the rattlesnake, crocodiles seem to possess the power of fascinating their prey, or rather of completely depriving their victims of all presence of mind, by the terror which they inspire. In Sumatra, Marsden once saw a large crocodile in a river, looking up to an overhanging tree, on which a number of small monkeys were sitting. The poor creatures were so beside themselves for fright, that instead of escaping to the land, which they might easily have done, they hurried towards the extremities of the branches, and at length fell into the water, where the dreadful monster was awaiting them. Crocodiles sometimes indulge in strange wanderings. Chamisso mentions one having been drifted to Eap, one of the Carolines, where it was killed after having devoured a woman; and about thirty years ago, the inhabitants of one of the Feejee Islands were equally astonished and alarmed at seeing a large crocodile emerge from the lagune, and lazily creep on shore. At first they took it for some marine deity; but it soon proved that its visit was not of a beneficent nature, as it seized and devoured nine of them at various intervals. After many unavailing attempts to destroy the monster, it was at length caught with a sling passed over the bough of a large tree, the other end of the rope being held at a distance by fourteen men who lay concealed, while one of the party offered himself as a bait to entice the reptile to run into the snare. Captain Fitzroy (‘Voyage of the Beagle’), who relates the fact, supposes that the animal must have been drifted all the way from the East Indies--a voyage which, in fact, is not more surprising than to see a turtle land upon the shores of the North Sea, or a sperm whale flounder about in the Thames.