Half Snake, Half Crocodile, Fully Forgotten

     Java: the most densely populated island in Indonesia, hills terraced right to the summit, miles and miles of incredibly beautiful scenes of paddy fields surrounded by green trees. (I know; I've been there.) The native tiger drifted into extinction in the 1970s. The native rhinoceros is holding on by its toenails to a single small peninsula. This is one place where you'd never expect an unusual and unknown animal to reside, isn't it? Well, here is a story originally told in 1899, although the event itself took place thirty years before.