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Dark now, with spangles of moonlight on the mesh roof of the tent. I read the Northern Territory News ("ROGUE CROW CHASES WOMEN!") while I eat my fried chicken. It's still hot, and sweat drips from my forehead onto the pages. Something crackles through the leaves outside, but its silhouette looks to be only that of a dingo, the Australian wild dog. I return to my chicken. While listening, of course.

There. There again. I shine my headlamp outside, and at the same time realize that I've just made perhaps my last mistake. In the panic of finding a camp while being pursued by ants, bees, and mosquitoes, I'd failed to heed the somber rule of crocodile country: you must camp at least 200 meters from water.

Hardly anyone is eaten by crocodiles in Australia. People die the usual way, with seized hearts or corroded livers or busted in car smashes. According to my semi-professional calculations, hungry crocs eat only 0.000018 percent of Australia's populace annually — about one person a year.

Trouble is, 100 percent of the victims went dreadfully.

Yesterday I'd toured Crocodylus Park in Darwin during feeding time, when very large reptiles were suddenly transformed from inanimate logs into a blur of teeth. They snapped up chicken carcasses so quickly that the multinational audience was left gasping what sounded like "Schneider mitzel!" and "Sacre la mama mia!"

Now I look at my greasy fingers and realize with horror that I'm eating chicken — the croc's delight! I'm sweating a wee bit more as I stuff the chicken into a plastic bag, that bag into another bag, then into another. Should I throw it outside, or will that just attract them? "The crocodile may have a very small brain," said the tour guide in Crocodylus Park, "but he uses 80 percent of that brain. That's a very high percentage." I hope the missing 20 percent is the sense of smell.

More sounds. I sweep the perimeter with my light. Nothing. Crocodiles are the biological and mythical equivalent of grizzly bears, but with this key difference: there's advice on how to deal with a bear. Play dead. Avoid eye contact. It may be bad advice, but you have a chance, however small, to fool them. There isn't a wisp of hope with the small-brained croc. They've been around since the dinosaurs, swallowing the unlucky. They are so good at it they've lazed away the last two hundred million years without bothering to evolve hair or the ability to do crossword puzzles, and their smug ignorance makes them more terrible.

I debate the choices: stay and pray, or go outside and see if there's water nearby. The mosquitoes sound like an air-raid siren; I'll be drilled within seconds. And what of the snakes? What if I'm near the dam? The poor dingo may already be just a tail sticking out of a knot of pythons.

A fruit drops off the tree above and pongs off the tent. More sweat. I listen closely, very closely, and realize how different the insects and birds and all the night sounds are from my Arizona home. I really am in Australia.

And when I notice that one sound is missing, I smile to myself and slump off into sleep. No frogs means no water.