expedient of putting his thumbs into the crocodile’s eyes. In connection with this
latter exploit, by the way, Malay authorities assert that the crocodile’s eyes
protrude from their sockets on stalks (like those of a crab) so long as he stays
under water, the stalks being “as long as the forefinger,” so that it is quite an
easy matter to catch hold of these living “pegs.”
For the rest, crocodiles are said by the Malays to have a sort of false stomach
divided into several pouches or sacs, one sac being for the stones which they
swallow, and another for the clothes and accoutrements of their human victims,
these pouches being in addition to their real stomach (in which the remains of
monkeys, wild pig, mouse-deer, and other small animals are found), and, in the
case of female specimens, the ovary. The second pair of eyes in the neck which,
Mr. Wray says, they are supposed to use when below the surface, are in Selangor
supposed to be used at night, whence they are called mata malam, or night-eyes,
as opposed to their real eyes which they are supposed to use only by day.
As regards the stones, which crocodiles undoubtedly swallow, they are
sometimes supposed to enable each male crocodile to keep an account of the
number of rivers which it has entered, of the number of bights it has lived in, or
even of the number of its human victims. The noise which crocodiles make when
fighting resembles a loud roar or bellow, and the Malays apply the same word
mĕnguak to the bellow of the crocodile as well as to that of the buffalo.
The wrath of the crocodile-folk is provoked by those who wish to shoot them, in
various ways, of which, perhaps, the commonest is to dabble a sarong, or (as is
said to be more effectual) a woman’s mosquito-curtain, in the water of the river
where they live. So also to keep two sets of weights and measures (one for
buying and another for selling, as is sometimes done by the Chinese), is said to
be a certain means of provoking their indignation.
The crocodile-wizard is sometimes credited with the power of calling the
crocodile-folk together, and of discovering a man-eater among them, and an eye-
witness lately described to me the scene on one such occasion. A Malay had
been carried off and devoured by a crocodile at Larut, and a Batu Bara man, who
went by the sobriquet of Nakhoda Hassan, undertook to discover the culprit.
Sprinkling some of the usual sacrificial rice-paste (tĕpong tawar) and “saffron”
rice upon the surface of the river, he called out in loud tones to the various tribes
of crocodiles in the river, and summoned them to appear on the surface. My