Roses are
degenerating. The Fannies of our island--though this I say with
reluctance--are not visibly improving; and the Bath road is notoriously
superannuated. Crocodiles, you will say, are stationary. Mr. Waterton
tells me that the crocodile does _not change_,--that a cayman, in
fact, or an alligator, is just as good for riding upon as he was in the
time of the Pharaohs. _That_ may be; but the reason is that the
crocodile does not live fast--he is a slow coach. I believe it is
generally understood among naturalists that the crocodile is a
blockhead. It is my own impression that the Pharaohs were also
blockheads. Now, as the Pharaohs and the crocodile domineered over
Egyptian society, this accounts for a singular mistake that prevailed
through innumerable generations on the Nile. The crocodile made the
ridiculous blunder of supposing man to be meant chiefly for his own
eating. Man, taking a different view of the subject, naturally met that
mistake by another: he viewed the crocodile as a thing sometimes to
worship, but always to run away from. And this continued till Mr.
Waterton [Footnote: "_Mr. Waterton_":--Had the reader lived through
the last generation, he would not need to be told that, some thirty or
thirty-five years back, Mr. Waterton, a distinguished country gentleman
of ancient family in Northumberland, publicly mounted and rode in top-
boots a savage old crocodile, that was restive and very impertinent,
but all to no purpose.
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