THE PROFESSOR AND THE CROCODILE.
A CHAPTER FROM AN UNPUBLISHED NATURAL (AND SUPERNATURAL) HISTORY.
Our title resembles that of a fable, but the story we are about to relate bears internal evidence of its truth.
The town of Weisstadt, in Germany, is full of philosophers, mathematicians, and savants of all kinds. On entering the place, the traveller is at once struck by the physiognomies of the inhabitants: all the faces are more or less like geometrical figures.
Herr Dummkopf, one of the innumerable professors who adorn Weisstadt, was rich though learned; nevertheless, something was wanting to complete his happiness. Every morning when he rose he addressed to himself the following remark:—“Why did the traveller Bruce never discover the peninsula of Meroë, which Herodotus saw as plainly as he saw the moon?” This thought at last absorbed him so completely, that he could not refrain from packing up his shirt and starting at once for Egypt. He passed through France, crossed the Mediterranean without observing anything, so thoroughly occupied was he with the non-discovery of the supposed peninsula. After remaining a few hours at Cairo, he pursued his journey to the ruins of Carnac. He bestowed a careless glance on the Colossus of Memnon, the crypts of Osimandias, the obelisks of Luxor, and all the wonders of Egyptian Thebes; and as he continued to ascend the Nile, he saw Latopolis, Elethyd, Apollinopolis, and Syene. The ruins of these ancient towns were not honoured by a single mark of admiration: it was humiliating for the Egypt of Sesostris!
One day the sun was so hot at noon—a very natural thing in the torrid zone—that the learned Dummkopf allowed himself to be seduced by the cool aspect of the Nile, and determined to make an era in his scientific life by taking a bath in the sacred stream.
He looked around him. The desert was indeed worthy of its name. There was not even a statue of Isis, of Ibis, of Anubis, or of Serapis to be seen. The Nile flowed on in religious silence, and Dummkopf, reassured by the solitude which reigned around, hastened to take off his boots and clothes, and after arranging them carefully on the bank, plunged into the eternal river.
Dummkopf was grateful to Mother Nature for having placed a cool refreshing stream by the side of a burning desert. As a boy he had been in the habit of swimming in the Rhine of his fatherland, and now remembering the accomplishments of his youth, he struck out, turned over, floated on his back, dived, paddled like a dog, plunged like a porpoise, and again thanked Mother Nature for having, in her bountiful wisdom, placed a cool refreshing stream by the side of a burning desert. He was continuing to disport himself like a freshwater Triton when suddenly, close to him, and in the middle of the Nile, he saw a huge green snout, adorned with lion’s teeth, and lighted up with a pair of blood-red eyes.
Dummkopf instantly remembered that the Nile was fertile in crocodiles, and began to chide his memory for not having thought of that fact before.
In the meanwhile the monster was bearing down on the imprudent bather, who, though thin, by reason of excessive study, was at the same time a very acceptable meal for a hungry crocodile.