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There were dense forests in deep canyons on the mountainside, bare and jagged heights, the graceful sweep of valleys, promontories leaping out from the mainland like mammoth crocodiles guarding the bay. The view of the main waters was broken by the largest of the islands, but far away were the hills of the east and the soft blue peaks behind.
Its great features would undoubtedly be the works of man hewn stones, and statues of bronze and marble, and tools of iron and human remains would be more common than those of animals on the greatest part of the surface; the columns of Paestum or of Agrigentum, or the immense iron and granite bridges of the Thames, would offer a striking contrast to the bones of the crocodiles or sauri in the older rocks, or even to those of the mammoth or elephas primogenius in the diluvial strata.
May 3. We set out for Malacotta, and about noon arrived at a village near a considerable stream of water which flows to the westward. Here we determined to stop for the return of the messenger who had been sent to Malacotta the day before; and as the natives assured me there were no crocodiles in this stream, I went and bathed myself.
'Now let me hear some more about the Crorkindills, said Peggotty, who was not quite right in the name yet, 'for I an't heard half enough. I couldn't quite understand why Peggotty looked so queer, or why she was so ready to go back to the crocodiles.
"I am not interested in hearing your lies! This child is simply a tender and mouthwatering human delicacy for the crocodiles to eat! That is all!" He looked at Ozma and laughed. "Fairy descent? This is not a Fairy! I know about these things! Fairies are tiny little critters with wings like those on one of our dragonflies. This is just a human child. A perfectly ordinary human child!"
Behind it is a relic of some of his semi-barbarous ancestors in the form of a tank, in which a lot of loathsome crocodiles are kept for the amusement of people who like that sort of thing.
After he had remained a short time in Tan-ta-ren, the sovereign crossed over to Keneh. In that place were no celebrated temples, incensed crocodiles, or golden tablets with stars. But commerce and pottery flourished. From that city went two roads to ports on the Red Sea: Koseir and Berenice, also a road to the porphyry mountains, whence they brought statues and great sticks of timber.
They generally worship and adore the crocodiles when they see them, by kneeling down and clasping their hands, because of the harm that they receive from those reptiles; they believe that by so doing the crocodiles will become appeased and leave them.
The Spaniards ride upon them; and, when weary, they turn their heads backward, and void a wonderfully stinking liquor from their mouths. From the rivers La Plata and Lima, or Rimac, inclusively to the southwards, there are no crocodiles, lizards, snakes, or other venomous reptiles; but the rivers produce great store of excellent fish.
"When the sands on the river side are of considerable breadth, the sauso often stretches to a considerable distance from the water's edge. It is on this intermediate space that you see the crocodiles, often to the number of eight or ten, stretched on the sand.
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