A smaller one was lying asleep high and dry upon
the bank; the wind was blowing strong, so that, by carefully
approaching, I secured a good shot within thirty yards, and
killed it on the spot by a bullet through the head, placed about
an inch above the eyes.
After some time, the large crocodiles, who had taken to the water
at the report of the gun, again appeared, and crawled slowly out
of the muddy river to their basking-places upon the bank. A
crocodile usually sleeps with its mouth wide open; I therefore
waited until the immense jaws of the nearest were well expanded,
showing a grand row of glittering teeth, when I crept carefully
towards it through the garden of thickly-planted cotton. Bacheet
and Wat Gamma followed in great eagerness. In a short time I
arrived within about forty yards of the beast, as it lay upon a
flat mud bank formed by one of the numerous torrents that had
carried down the soil during the storm of yesterday. The cover
ceased, and it was impossible to approach nearer without alarming
the crocodile; it was a fine specimen, apparently nineteen or
twenty feet in length, and I took a steady shot with the little
Fletcher rifle at the temple, exactly in front of the point of
union of the head with the spine.
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