“In Afric’s sunny clime,” flood, and river, and lake are haunted by the loathsome and dangerous Crocodile (Lacerta crocodilus), one of the most powerful species of the Saurian race. Though he preys chiefly on fish, his capacious jaws will devour any animal that comes within their reach; and when one reflects that he often attains the length of twenty to thirty feet, that the upper part of his body is clothed with an almost impenetrable scaly armour, that his long, oar-like tail is of immense strength, one can readily comprehend the vast amount of destruction such a monster can effect. Happily his movements on land are impeded by the unwieldiness of his body, which prevents him from turning except with great difficulty, and enables his intended victims to effect their escape. In the water, however, he glides along with great rapidity.
The female deposits her eggs, which are not much larger than those of a goose, in the sand or mud near the banks of the rivers or streams which she frequents. By a beneficent provision of Nature, the young are largely devoured by birds, ichneumons, and other animals, preventing their otherwise rapid increase. The colour of a full-grown crocodile is a blackish-brown above and yellowish-white beneath, the upper parts of the legs and sides being relieved by shades of deep yellow, and in some places tinged with green. The mouth is of vast width, and both jaws bristle with a terrible array of sharp-pointed teeth.
The African species all belong to the same genus, of which the Crocodile of the Nile is the type.
At the Gaboon, the negroes hunt their enemies either with muskets or a kind of harpoon. Their vulnerable points are the attachment of the anterior limbs, and, of course, the eyes. It is here that their assailants endeavour to mark them. They are killed every day without their number appearing to be sensibly diminished, and, what is singular enough, without their seeming to grow mistrustful. During the heat of the noon, they retire among the reeds and rushes for repose, but never remain long in any one place. At evening and at morning they sally forth in quest of prey. They swim without making any noise, scarcely disturbing the water, which they cleave like dogs; they will also remain motionless on its surface, glancing around them with cruel, dull, sinister eyes. The negro does not feel towards them so great an horror as Europeans experience, who are powerfully affected by their exceeding hideousness. They eat their flesh, with which their huge bony skeleton is scantily furnished, and, according to Du Chaillu, can never obtain enough of the much-prized delicacy.[127]
The Indian Crocodile, the Gavial or Garial (Crocodilus Gangeticus), is of the same size as his African congener, but easily distinguished by the peculiar conformation of his mouth; the jaws being remarkably straight, long, and narrow. The sides of the head are straight and perpendicular, the upper surface quadrilateral; and the mandible, instead of sloping gradually from the forehead, sinks suddenly to follow a straight and almost horizontal direction. The teeth are nearly double in number those of the Nilotic monster, but he is far less dangerous, and feeds only on fish. There are two species: the Gavial of the Ganges, found in all the great rivers of Southern Asia; and the Gavial of Schlegel, belonging exclusively to the island of Borneo.
Serpents of every size, venomous and non-venomous, multiply in the jungles, marshes, and woods of all tropical countries. Africa and Asia are abundantly provided with them. In Senegal they are all, or mostly all, inoffensive, and the objects of devout worship on the part of the negroes of Dahomey; but naturalists have not yet determined their respective genera. It is certain, however, that they do not all belong to the same species. In size, says the French traveller, Dr. Répin, they vary from three to ten feet. Their head is large, flattened, and triangular; the neck not quite so large as the remainder of the body; in these respects resembling the entire host of Ophidia. They vary in colour from a bright yellow to a yellowish-green, according perhaps to their age. Most of them are marked upon the back, for their whole length, with two brown lines, while a few are irregularly spotted. The long and prehensile tail, and the facility with which some of them climb, would refer them probably to the genus Leptophis of Duméril and Bibron. At Whydah, these divinities are lodged in a temple shaded by lofty and beautiful trees. This curious edifice is described as a kind of rotunda, from thirty to forty feet in diameter, and from twenty-two to twenty-five feet high. Its walls, constructed of sunburnt clay, are pierced, like those of the Dahomean houses, by two opposite gates, affording free ingress and egress to the deities of the place. The roof, formed of branches curiously interlaced and covered with a layer of dried grass, is constantly tapestried with a myriad serpents. Some climb or descend by writhing round the trunks of trees arranged for this purpose along the walls; others, suspended by the tail, balance themselves indifferently in the air; others, again, lie coiled up in spiral folds on the ground or among the grasses of the temple roof. They never want for nourishment; the devout supply them with constant renewals of food, and in such abundance, that the priests, who, moreover, exercise the double profession of sorcerers and doctors, are in no greater peril of starvation than their gods!
The spotted serpents of which Dr. Répin speaks may possibly be no other than Pythons, those gigantic Ophidians of the tropical regions of the Old World which are found in Africa, in India, in the Indian Archipelago, and even in Australia. It should be noted, however, that their size generally exceeds that of the largest serpents which Dr. Répin saw at Whydah. Their length is from fifteen to twenty-five feet—specimens have been met with measuring thirty—and their maximum diameter ranges from ten to twelve inches. Their back is variegated with large spots, whose form, colour, and disposition differ according to their species. The tail is short, and not prehensile. Their favourite haunt is the low marshy ground, rank with moist herbage, where they prey upon birds and small animals, swallowing them whole—swallowing them even alive—after having seized them in the invincible folds of their long sinuous bodies, and always commencing with their hinder parts. So greedy a repast must necessarily be followed by a slow and difficult digestion, and cannot be renewed at any very brief interval. They eat in effect but once a month, or once in two months. During the lethargic and semi-somnolent condition which invariably follows their debauch, they fall easy victims to the attacks of their enemies. The principal African species of this genus are, the Python of Seba, of Central Africa, and the Royal Python of Senegambia.
The species peculiar to Asiatic climes is the Python Molure, a native of the Indian Peninsula, and of the islands of Java and Sumatra. The Python of the Sunda Islands, called by the natives Ular-Sawa, attains the length of fully thirty feet. It has a large flat head, of a bluish-gray colour, a thick yellowish muzzle, and cylindrical neck. Its body is marked with deep-blue spots, with a yellow or tawny border; its yellow tail with blue rings. Its ordinary habitat is the rivers; it feeds on rats and birds, but also pursues, when ashore, the largest animals.
We are indebted to Dr. Livingstone for much curious information respecting the serpents of South Africa, and especially in reference to the Striking Echidna, a singularly formidable viper, which the negroes designate Picakolou. He tells us that he killed one day a reptile of this species, which was of a deep brown colour, verging on black, and measured seven feet and a half in length.[128] These reptiles possess so abundant and deadly a venom, that when one of them is attacked by a band of dogs, the first dog bitten dies immediately; the second, five minutes afterwards; the third, at the end of an hour; and the fourth, after a more or less lengthened agony. A great number of beasts is annually destroyed by the Picakolous; the fangs of an individual killed at Kolobeng distilled poison for several hours after its head had been severed from its body. It is probably this plentiful secretion which the natives call “the serpent’s spittle,” and which leads them to suppose that the Picakolou is endowed with a power of injecting it into its enemies’ eyes when the wind is favourable.
