CROCODILES AT SENGALORE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5683, 17 June 1879, Page 3

CROCODILES AT SENGALORE.

The annual Bulan Pnasa or Ramadan was being observed, when our Malays fast by day, gorge themselves at night, and suffer all the horrors of dyspepsia until feeding time comes again. When the sun sets a gun is fired from the picturesque little fort guarding the Klang river and the British Residency. The first meal is over, and again at the approach of midnight the faithful were making ready for another attack on the good things provided ; when, preparatory to the repast, one Hadjie Mahomet Yakim, a stalwart Monaugkabow man, proceeds to a large log of timber at the landing place, at the end of Gelan Malayn—the Malay street—to perform his ablutions and add to the long list of prayers he has so conscientiously recited during the past day. _ A scream of terror is heard from the landing place, and the Hadjie’s friends rush out of their houses, alarmed at what they hear. A search is made, but the poor Hadjie has disappeared, leaving his turban and marks of struggling in the mud to show what fate had been his. A few enquiries soon indicate that one of the numerous crocodiles iu the river had taken the unhappy Hadjie, and the usual standing reward of forty cents a foot was offered for the capture of the brute. Three days elapse, when a Pandi-pahang man offers to the superintendent of police to “ tankup itu boya” (catch the crocodile), if the Resident will increase the reward to a dollar a foot. This was readily agreed to, and within twenty-four hours the Hadjie-eating crocodile was hooked literally. A large iron hook was baited with a large fowl, a very long rattan, some ninety feet in length, being fastened to the hook. The bight of the rattan is thrown over the overhanging branch of a tree, and the bait is suspended on the surface of the water. The following morning the spot is visited, and the rattan has disappeared. A canoe with our crocodile-catcher and two others search the river, and at last the floating rattan is discovered. A pull at it soon indicates what sort of fish has been hooked, and our boatmen play the crocodile with a long scope, and he is quiat enough to get ashore ; then they manage to secure him literally hand and foot, the jaws lashed together, the tail, however, being free. The brute measured thirteen feet in length, and how the three plucky fellows managed to fasten him, and subsequently roll him off the bank into their small dug-out canoe, is beyond my comprehension. Of course, when tired out, the crocodile was pretty quiet, and they could easily have speared him; but they absolutely brought him to the boom or public landing place unhurt. Here a public reception was accorded the man-eater, and all the boys in the town fairly towed him up the hill to the fort gates. The superintendent received him, and took him inside his small garden—an attention he acknowledged by sweeping half the flower pots with one sweep of his tail, and sending an unhappy retriever flying across the compound. I was away when the crocodile was brought in, but I arrived at night to witness a scene worth sketching. There lay the fastened brute, with heaving flank, and now and then a sweep of the tail that indicated with what force it could be used. One of the officers stepped forward and gave the beast a kick in the side, which he resented with a stroke of his tail that would have certainly put a stop to my friend’s kicking for some time to come, had it taken effect. The fort garden was crowded by the men, and the glare of torches, gleaming of weapons, and angry glances from the poor Hadjie's friends at the victim before them, formed a scene not easily forgotten. Speculation was rife as to whether the right crocodile had been caught, but all agreed he looked fat enough to contain a Hadjie during Bulan Pnasa. This was soon set at rest, and I had the satisfaction of putting three rifle bullets in the neck of the brute, which settled him. On opening him, sure enough there was the poor Hadjie’s head, almost cloven in three parts, and other remains—evidences of a taste for goats, fowls, and other such odds and ends. Another crocodile frequents the landing-place, and we hope to get him.—B. 1).