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墨書 Inktalez
Africa is a magical place, where the excellent tropical rainforest environment provides an ideal habitat for many large animals.
Among the unknown creatures of the region, there is the legendary giant crocodile of the Congo area known as Mahamba.
Mahamba refers to a massive crocodile that exceeds 50 feet (15.2 meters) in length, with overall shape and behavior not much different from the native Nile Crocodile. It is known to attack humans and dig burrows in swamps.
Its unusual size is what makes it particularly remarkable; imagine a crocodile as long as a five-story building.
I could not find a specific explanation or etymology for the name Mahamba, but a user on Reddit offered a relatively reliable opinion. The word "Hamba" in South African Xhosa means to walk or to leave.
In South African Xhosa, Mahamba can be directly translated as "let's leave." If emphasized, it could also mean "let's run away; we should flee upon seeing such a creature," which may be one of the origins of the name.
In the late 19th century, Belgian explorer John Reinhardt Werner accompanied the famous American administrator Sir Henry Stanley on an expedition to the Congo. In 1889, he compiled his observations of life along the Congo River into a narrative book titled "Visiting Stanley's Guard Force."
The book records that from late September to early October 1887, Professor Werner was returning to Malawi Lake aboard the International African Association Ship (referred to as the AIA). While passing over the wide waterways above Berobert Town, he spotted this giant crocodile.
The impact of the steamboat's propeller forced the crocodiles in the river to hurriedly retreat. The napping monster seemed aware of what was about to happen and moved away in advance.
At the edge of the grass, on a low sandbar, he occasionally saw a massive crocodile that might have been 50 feet long. In any case, he had seen several crocodiles longer than the AIA's small steamboat, which measured 42 feet in length.
Once, while hunting ducks on a large sandbar, he caught one and noticed that several others were hiding behind low dunes. He crouched down and crept along behind the dune until he thought he was within range. When he raised his head, sure enough, the ducks were less than 50 yards away.
However, at that moment, he noticed that lying between him and the flock was the largest crocodile he had ever seen. Comparing it to the AIA steamboat about 300 yards away in deep water, he estimated it to be at least 50 feet long, with its serrated back rising at least 4 feet above the height of its belly resting on the sand.
I only had a shotgun on me. When I first saw it, I instructed an Indigenous Boy accompanying me to go back and fetch my rifle. While waiting for him to return, I made the observations mentioned above. Meanwhile, the crocodile did not notice me; it was either asleep or out of my line of sight.
In nautical terms, I was positioned behind its starboard side, cautiously keeping my distance from its massive tail. Since the boy might take a while to arrive, I thought it best to stay far away, but this startled the flock of ducks, causing them to fly off in the opposite direction. This made me anxious, as we had already run out of meat on the boat.
In that moment, I forgot about the crocodile and fired wildly at the ducks. Although I missed, the enormous lizard—referring to the crocodile—was frightened and dove into the water, its large tail sweeping up sand in all directions.
The time was February 1888. The expedition was traveling from Leopoldville—now known as Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo—along the Congo River with supplies heading towards what was then called the Bangala District. About two or three days after passing Pululu Island, we encountered this giant creature once again.
His exact words were: "We suddenly came upon a sandbar where the water was only three feet deep. The engine had stopped, but our bow was still lodged in the sand. At that moment, it seemed like the sand beneath the boat began to undulate, and the river water started to behave strangely.
I tried to find out what was causing these unusual movements. I thought to myself that if the water there had been deeper, I would have attributed these phenomena to colliding with a hippopotamus. However, it was clear that the water was not deep enough to submerge a hippopotamus.
Just then, I saw a gigantic crocodile suddenly rush past the riverbank and plunge into deeper waters in the distance. I was certain its length exceeded forty feet—longer than our boat.
I had never seen such a massive crocodile move so quickly; I didn’t even have time to shoot at it. It must have heard our boat approaching and was trying to reach deeper water when it happened to get struck by our vessel, burying itself in the sand.
We collided with it at a speed of four miles per hour, but during its brief appearance, I did not see any wounds on its body."
In the 1980s, University of Chicago biologist Roy McCall collaborated with University of Arizona ecologist Richard Greenwell and Congo biologist Masarlin Agnania on two expeditions into the African Congo Rainforest in search of the legendary living dinosaur—Mokele-Mbembe—and compiled their findings into a book titled "Searching for Living Dinosaur: Mokele-Mbembe."
The book includes various eyewitness reports of unknown local creatures they collected during their explorations, one of which is Mahamba.
He mentioned that local assistants in the Likala Swamp area reported a giant crocodile measuring over fifteen meters long. In Lingala, which is used locally, crocodiles are referred to as Enkiri.
All the locals insist that Mahamba is not a type of Living Dinosaur like Mokele-Mbembe, but rather a large species distinct from the ordinary Nile Crocodile. Descriptions of Mahamba's characteristics suggest that its form resembles that of a regular crocodile, yet all reports indicate that it is significantly longer than the latter.
This creature reproduces through oviparity and has been known to attack livestock and humans near the lakeshore. It is said to dig underground tunnels ranging from 50 to 1000 meters in length, and at the end of these tunnels, it excavates nesting cavities.
Professor Michael primarily cites several encounters recorded by Professor Werner in his book, without providing detailed descriptions of the reports from local assistants.
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