The Crocodile Hazard

"If a ball comes to rest within dangerous proximity to a crocodile," runs one of the ground rules at a golf club in Uganda, "another ball may be dropped." Crocodiles have always been a hazard in equator-straddling Uganda, but until recently the creatures have stayed pretty close to the territory's lakes, swamps and rivers. Last week they were crawling all over the place. "Look out," a newly posted notice warned motorists on a roadside in Mubende. "Crocodiles are lying in wait for you."

According to native superstition, the trouble began in Sacred Crocodile Lake, where, 60 years or more ago, King Mwanga used to hurl human sacrifices to feed the beasts. Mwanga thought the crocodiles embodied the spirits of his ancestors, but after his death an enlightened colonial government put the beasts on a diet of fish. Later, the government cleaned them out of the lake altogether--or thought it did. But last week, an alert game warden discovered one little four-foot croc still in residence. Ah, said the natives, old Mwanga himself. A hunt began, and the little croc vanished.

Two days later, torrential rains poured down on the territory. Rivers overflowed their banks, lakes poured over and inundated the valleys, swamp waters rose over the roads winding through them. Borne on the flood, crocodiles slithered everywhere, seeking--said the terrified natives--revenge on the white man for his sacrilege.

In the midst of the deluge and the panic, the Sacred Lake itself burst its banks and ran dry. For old Mwanga's grandson, 27-year-old King Edward Frederick William David Walugumbe Muterbi Luwangula Mutesa II, this was the most worrisome blow of all. A local legend holds that when the Sacred Lake runs dry, the King must die. Cambridge-educated King Mutesa II does not believe such legends ; his chief fear is that his restless subjects, who are not Cambridge-educated, might use force to carry out the old prophecy.

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