The Bafut Beagles Read online

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Bafut Beagles

  In order to hunt for the various members of the Bafut fauna, I employed, as well as the four hunters the Fon had supplied, a pack of six thin and ungainly mongrels, who, their owners assured me, were the finest hunting dogs in West Africa. I called this untidy ensemble of men and dogs the Bafut Beagles. Although the hunters did not understand the meaning of this title they grew extremely proud of it, and I once heard a hunter, when arguing with a neighbour, proclaim in shrill and indignant tones, ‘You no go shout me like dat, ma friend. You no savvay dat I be Bafut Beagle?’

  Our hunting method was as follows: we would walk out to some remote hillside or valley, and then choose a thick patch of grass and bushes. At a suitable point we would spread the nets in a half-moon shape; then, with the dogs, we would walk through the undergrowth, driving whatever creatures we found there into the nets. Each dog wore round its neck a little wooden bell, so that when the pack disappeared into the long grass we could still keep a track on their whereabouts by the loud clonking noise from these ornaments. The advantage of this method of hunting was that I was on the spot to handle the creatures from the very moment of capture, and they could be hastily transported back to Bafut and placed in decent cages with the minimum of delay. We transported our captures in bags with special air holes, ringed with brass, let into the sides; for the bigger and tougher creatures the bags were of canvas or hessian, and for the more delicate beasts they were made out of soft cloth. Once in the darkness of the bag the captives generally ceased to struggle, and lay quite quiet until we got them home again; the most frightening part of the process from the animals’ point of view was disentangling them from the net, but after a bit of practice we got this down to a fine art, and an animal could be caught, removed from the net, and placed in a bag within the space of two minutes.

  The first day that I went out with the Bafut Beagles the hunters turned up so heavily armed one would have thought that we were going out to hunt a lion. Apart from the usual machetes, they were carrying spears and flintlocks. As I did not fancy receiving a backside full of rusty nails and gravel, I insisted, amid much lamentation, that the guns be left behind. The hunters were horrified at my decision.

  ‘Masa,’ said one of them plaintively, ‘if we go meet bad beef how we go kill um if we go lef’ our gun for dis place?’

  ‘If we go meet bad beef we go catch um, no kill um,’ I said firmly.

  ‘Eh! Masa go catch bad beef?’

  ‘Na so, my friend. If you fear, you no go come, you hear?’

  ‘Masa, I no de fear,’ he said indignantly; ‘but if we go meet bad beef and it go kill Masa, de Fon get angry too much.’

  ‘Hush your mouth, my friend,’ I said, producing the shotgun. ‘I go take my own gun. Den if beef go kill me it no be your palaver, you hear?’

  ‘I hear, sah,’ said the hunter.

  It was very early morning, and the sun had not yet risen above the encircling mountain ranges. The sky was a very delicate shade of rose pink, trimmed here and there with a lacing of white cloud. The valleys and hills were still blurred and obscured with mist, and the long golden grass at the roadside was bent and heavy with dew. The hunters walked ahead in single file, the pack of dogs scampering in and out of the undergrowth, their bells making a pleasant clonking as they ran. Presently we turned off the road and followed a narrow twisting pathway that led over the hills. Here the mist was thicker, but low-lying. You could not see the lower half of your body, and you got the eerie impression that you were wading waist deep in a smooth and gently undulating lake of foam. The long grass, moist with dew, squeaked across my shoes, and all around me, under the surface of this opaque mist lake, tiny frogs were sharing an amphibian joke with each other in a series of explosive chuckles. Soon the sun rose like a frosted orange above the distant fringe of hills, and as its heat grew stronger the mist started to rise from the ground and coil up to the sky, until it seemed as though we were walking through a forest of pale white trees that twisted and bent, broke and reformed with amoebic skill as they stretched and spiralled their way upwards. It took us about two hours to reach our destination, the place that the hunters had chosen for our first hunt. It was a deep, wide valley lying between two ridges of hills, curving slightly, like a bow. Along the bottom of this valley a tiny stream made its way between black rocks and golden grass, glinting in the sun like a fine skein of spun glass. The undergrowth in the valley was thick and tangled, shaded here and there by small clumps of shrubs and bushes.

  We made our way down into the valley, and there spread about a hundred yards of nets right across it. Then the hunters took the dogs and went to the head of the valley, while I waited near the nets. For half an hour there was silence as they moved slowly towards the net, a silence broken only by the faint sounds of the dogs’ bells and an occasional shrill expletive from the hunters when one of them trod on a thorn. I was just beginning to think that we had drawn a blank when the hunters started a great uproar and the dogs began barking furiously. They were still some distance away from the net, and hidden from my view by a small clump of trees.

  ‘Na whatee?’ I shouted above the noise.

  ‘Na beef for dis place, Masa,’ came the answer.

  I waited patiently, and presently a panting hunter burst through the trees.

  ‘Masa, you go give me dis small catch-net,’ he said, pointing at the smaller nets neatly piled beside the bags.

  ‘Na what kind of beef you done find?’ I asked him.

  ‘Na squirrel, sah. ’E done run for up stick.’

  I picked up a thick canvas bag, and followed him through the undergrowth until we reached the clump of trees. Here the hunters were grouped, all chattering and arguing as to the best way of catching the quarry, while the dogs leapt and barked round the trunk of a small tree.

  ‘Which side dis beef?’ I asked.

  ‘We go catch um one time, Masa.’

  ‘Na fine beef dis, Masa.’

  ‘We go catch um one time, Masa.’

  I stepped to the base of the tree and peered up into the foliage; there, perched on a branch some twenty feet above us, was a large and handsome squirrel, of a brindled grey colour with a white stripe along his ribs, and orange paws. His tail was long and not bushy, banded faintly with grey and black. He squatted on the branch, occasionally flipping his tail at us and crying ‘Chuck!… chuck!’ in a testy sort of manner, as though he was more irritated than alarmed. He watched us with a malevolent eye while we set up the nets in a circle, about ten feet away from the base of the tree. Then we tied up the dogs, and the smallest of the hunters was detailed to climb after the squirrel and drive him down. This latter part of the operation was the hunters’ idea; I felt that to try and out-manoeuvre a squirrel in a tree would be impossible, but the hunters insisted that once someone climbed up, the squirrel would come down to the ground. As it turned out they were quite right: no sooner had the hunter reached the upper branches on one side of the tree than the squirrel shot down the trunk on the other side. With incredible cunning he dashed at the one part of the net that had a tear in it, struggled through the hole, and galloped off through the grass, the hunters and myself in hot pursuit, all of us shouting instructions to one another which were completely disregarded. We rounded a clump of bushes to see the squirrel scrambling up the trunk of another small tree.

  Once again we spread the nets, and once again the hunter climbed up after the squirrel. This time, however, our quarry was more cunning, for he saw that we were guarding the hole in the net through which he had escaped last time. He ran down the tree-trunk on to the ground, gathered himself into a bunch, and jumped. He sailed through the air and cleared the top of the net by about half an inch; the hunter nearest to him made a wild grab, but missed him, and the squirrel galloped off chuck-chucking indignantly to himself. This time he decided on new evasive tactics, and so instead of climbing up a tree, he dived into a hole at the base of one of them.

 
Once again we surrounded the tree with nets, and then started to poke long, slender sticks down into the network of tunnel in which he was hiding. This, however, had no effect whatsoever, except to make him chuck a bit faster, so we gave it up. Our next attempt was more successful: we stuffed a handful of smouldering grass into the largest hole, and as the pungent smoke was swept through the various tunnels we could hear the squirrel coughing and sneezing in an angry fashion. At last he could bear it no longer and dashed out of one of the holes, diving head-first into the nets. But even then he had not finished causing trouble, for he bit me and two of the hunters while we were disentangling him, and bit a third hunter while he was being forced into a canvas bag. I hung the bag on the branches of a small bush, and we all sat down to have a much-needed smoke while the squirrel peered at us through the brass-ringed air holes and chattered ferociously, daring us to open the bag and face him.

  The Side-striped Ground Squirrels are common enough in the grasslands of West Africa, but I was pleased to have caught this one, as he was the first live specimen I had obtained. As their name implies, these squirrels are almost completely terrestrial in their habits, so it rather surprised me to see the one we had caught taking refuge up in the trees. I discovered later that all the grassland squirrels (most of which are terrestrial) made straight for the trees when pursued, and only chose holes in the ground, or hollow logs, as a last resort.

  Presently, when we had bound up our wounds, smoked cigarettes, and congratulated each other on our first capture, we moved the big net farther down the valley, to an area where the grass was thick and tangled and almost six feet tall. This was a good place for a special kind of beef, the hunters informed me, though, with understandable caution, they refused to specify what kind. We set up the net, I placed myself at a suitable point half-way along it and inside the curve, so that I could disentangle anything that was caught, and the hunters took the dogs and made their way about a quarter of a mile up the valley. They gave a prolonged yodel to let me know they had started to beat through the long grass, and then silence descended. All I could hear was the whirr and tick of innumerable grasshoppers and locusts around me, and the faint sounds of the dogs’ bells. Half an hour passed and nothing happened; I was hemmed in by tall, rustling grass, so thick and interwoven that it was impossible to see through it for more than a couple of feet.

  The tiny clearing in which I was sitting shimmered with heat, and I began to feel extremely thirsty; looking round, I noticed something that I had forgotten: a thermos flask of tea which my thoughtful cook had stuck into one of the collecting bags. Thankfully, I got it out, and, squatting down at the edge of the long grass, poured myself a cup. As I was drinking, I noticed the mouth of a dark tunnel in the wall of grass opposite to where I was squatting; it was obviously some creature’s private pathway through the forest of grass stalks, and I decided that when I had finished my drink I would investigate it.

  I had just poured out my second cup of tea when a terrific uproar broke out to my right, and startlingly near at hand; the hunters were uttering shrill yelps to encourage the dogs, and the dogs were barking furiously. I was just wondering what it was all about when I heard a rustling noise in the grass; I moved closer to the tunnel to try to see what was causing the sound, when quite suddenly the grass parted and a large dark-brown shape hurled itself out of the hole and ran straight into me. I was at a distinct disadvantage: to begin with, I was not expecting the attack, and secondly, I was squatting on my heels, clasping a thermos flask in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. The animal, which, to my startled eyes, seemed to be twice the size of a beaver, landed amidships, and I went flat on my back, the creature on my stomach, and the thermos flask pouring a stream of scalding tea into my lap with deadly accuracy. Both the creature and I seemed equally astonished, and our shrill squeals of fright were almost identical. My hands were full, so I could do nothing more than make a wild grab at him with my arms, but he bounded off me like a rubber ball and scuttled away through the grass. A portion of the net started to jerk and quiver, and despairing squeals were wafted to me, so I presumed that he must have run straight into the net. Shouting for the hunters, I struggled through the long grass towards the spot where the net was moving.

  Our quarry had entangled himself very thoroughly, and he lay hunched up in the net, quivering and snorting, and occasionally making ineffectual attempts to bite through the mesh. Peering at it, I could see we had caught a very large Cane Rat, a creature known to the Africans as a Cutting-grass, a name which describes its habits very well, for with its large and well-developed incisors the Cutting-grass goes through the grass-fields – and the farmlands – like a mowing machine. It measured about two and a half feet in length, and was covered with a coarse brownish fur. It had a chubby, rather beaver-like face, small ears set close to the head, a thick naked tail, and large naked feet. It seemed so scared of my presence that I did not approach it until the hunters arrived, for fear it would break out of the net. It lay there quivering violently, and occasionally giving little jerks and leaps into the air, accompanying them with a despairing squeal. At the time, this action worried me quite a lot, for it looked as though the creature was in the last stages of a heart attack. It was only later when I grew to know these animals better, that I discovered they greeted any unusual experience with this display of hysteria, in the hope, I suppose, of frightening or confusing the enemy. In reality, Cane Rats are not very timid animals and would not hesitate to bury their large incisors in the back of your hand if you tried to take liberties with them. I kept a discreet distance until the hunters joined me; then we went forward and removed the rat from the net.

  While we were manoeuvring him from the net into a stout bag, he suddenly jumped violently in my hands; to my surprise, as I tightened my grip on him, a large quantity of his fur came away in my fingers. When we had him safely in the bag, I sat down and examined the hair that my clutch had removed from his fat body; it was fairly long and quite thick, more like a coarse bristle; it is apparently planted so loosely in the skin that it comes away in handfuls at the slightest pull. Once it has come away, the hair takes a remarkably long time to grow again, and, as bald Cane Rats are not exactly beautiful, one had to handle them with extreme care.

  After we had captured the Cane Rat we made our way slowly up the valley, spreading the net at intervals and beating likely-looking patches of undergrowth. When it was obvious that the valley would yield no more specimens, we rolled up the nets and made our way towards a large hill about half a mile away. This hill was so beautifully formed that it might well have been a barrow, the grave of some giant who had prowled the grassland in days gone by; on the very top was a cluster of boulders, each the size of a house, rearing themselves up like a monument. Growing in the narrow crevices and gullies between these rocks were a number of tiny trees, their trunks twisted and crumpled by the winds, each bearing a small cluster of bright golden fruit. In the long grass round the base of the trunks grew several purple and yellow orchids, and in places the great rocks were covered with a thick mat of climbing plant, a kind of convolvulus, from which dangled the ivory-coloured, trumpet-shaped flowers. The great pile of rocks, the bright flowers and the shaggy and misshapen trees formed a wonderful picture against the smouldering blue of the afternoon sky.

  We climbed up into the shade of these rocks and squatted in the long grass to have our meal. The mountain grassland spread away from us in all directions, its multitude of colours shimmering and changing with the wind. The hill-crests were pale gold changing to white, while the valleys were pale greeny-blue, darker in places where a pompous cumulus cloud swept over, trailing a purple shadow in its wake. Directly ahead of us lay a long range of delicately sculptured hills whose base was almost hidden in a litter of great boulders and small trees. The hills were so smoothly and beautifully formed, and clad in grass which showed such a bewildering variety of greens, golds, purples, and whites, that they looked like a great rambling wave rearing up to break
over the puny barrier of rocks and shrubs below. The peace and silence of these heights was remarkable; nearly all sounds were created by the wind, and it was busy moving here and there, making each object produce its own song. It combed the grass and brought forth a soft, lisping rustle; it squeezed and wriggled between the cracks and joints of the rocks above us and made owl-like moans and sudden hoots of mirth; it pushed and wrestled with the tough little trees, making them creak and groan, and making their leaves flutter and purr like kittens. Yet all these small sounds seemed to enhance rather than destroy the silence of the grassland.

  Suddenly the silence was shattered by a terrific uproar that broke out behind the massive pile of rocks. Working my way round there, I found the hunters and dogs in a group at the base of a giant rock. Three of the hunters were arguing vigorously with each other, while the fourth was dancing about, yelping with pain and scattering large quantities of blood from a wound in his hand, with the excited dogs leaping and barking frenziedly around him.

  ‘Na whatee dis palaver?’ I asked.

  All four hunters turned on me and offered their separate descriptions of the event, their voices becoming louder and louder as they tried to shout each other down.

  ‘Why you all de shout? How I go hear if you all go talk together like women, eh?’ I said.