A Zoo in My Luggage Page 9

  February 20: At last, after much trial and error, Bob has discovered what the hairy frogs eat: snails. We had previously tried young mice and rats, baby birds, eggs, beetles and their larvae, locusts, all without success. Snails they devour avidly, so we have high hopes of getting the frogs back alive. Have had an outbreak of what appears to be nephritis among the Demidoff’s bushbabies. Two discovered this morning drenched in urine as though they had been dipped. Have weakened the milk they get; it may be too strong. Also organized more insect food for them. The five baby Demidoff’s are still thriving on their Complan milk, which is curious as this is incredibly rich, and if ordinary dried milk affects the adults one would have thought Complan would have had a similar effect on the babies.

  March 16: Two nice cobras brought in, one about six feet long and the other about two feet. Both fed straight away. Best item today was female pigmy mongoose and two babies. The babies are still blind and an extraordinary pale fawn in contrast to the dark brown mother. Have removed babies to hand-rear them as felt sure female would either neglect or kill them if they were put with her.

  March 17: Young pigmy mongooses flatly refuse to feed from bottle or from fountain-pen filler. In view of this (since their chances seemed slim) put them into cage with female. To my surprise she has accepted them and is suckling them well. Most unusual. Had two broken leg jobs today: Woodford’s owl which had been caught in a gin-trap and a young hawk with a greenstick fracture. I don’t think the owl will regain use of leg for all the ligaments appear to be torn, and the bone badly splintered. Hawk’s leg should be O.K. as it’s a young bird. Both are feeding well. Demidoff’s make a faint mewing hiss when disturbed at night, the only sound I have heard them make apart from their bat-like twittering when fighting. Clawed toads have started to call at night: very faint ‘peep-peep’ noise, rather like someone flicking the edge of a glass gently with finger-nail.

  April 2: Young male chimp, about two years old, brought in today. Was in a terrible mess. Had been caught in one of the wire noose-traps they use for antelopes, and had damaged its left hand and arm. The palm of the hand and the wrist were split right open and badly infected with gangrene. The animal was very weak, not being able to sit up, and the colour of the skin was a curious yellowish grey. Attended to wound and injected penicillin. Drove it in to Bemenda for the Dept. of Agriculture’s vet to have a look at, as did not like skin colour or curious lethargy in spite of stimulants. He took blood test and diagnosed sleeping-sickness. Have done all we can but the animal appears to be sinking fast. He seems pathetically grateful for anything you do for him.

  April 3: Chimp died. They are a ‘protected’ animal and yet up here, as in other parts of the Cameroons, they are killed and eaten regularly. Big rhinoceros viper fed for first time: small rat. One of the green forest squirrels appears to be developing a bald patch on his back: presume lack of vitamins so am increasing his Abidec. As we now get good supply of weaver-birds’ eggs each day all the squirrels are getting them, in addition to their normal diet. The brush-tail porcupines, when disturbed at night beat rapid tattoo with their hind-feet (like a wild rabbit) then swing their backside round to face danger and rustle bunch of quills on end of tail, producing a sound reminiscent of rattle-snake.

  April 5: Have found simple, rapid way of sexing pottos. Nice young male brought in today. Although external genitalia in both sexes are remarkably similar to a superficial glance, have discovered that simplest way is to smell them. The testicles of the male give out a faint, sweet odour, like pear drops, when the animal is handled.

  We were not the only ones interested in the animals. Many of the local people had never seen some of the creatures we had acquired, and many called and asked for permission to look round the collection. One day the Headmaster of the local Mission School called and asked if he could bring his entire school of two-hundred-odd boys to see the collection. I was glad to agree to this, for I feel that if you can, by showing live animals, arouse people’s interest in their local fauna and its preservation you are doing something worthwhile. So, on the appointed date, the boys came marching down the road in a double column, shepherded by five masters. In the road below the Rest House the boys were divided up into groups of twenty and then brought up in turn by a master. Jacquie, Sophie, Bob and I took up stations at various points in the collection to answer any queries. The boys behaved in a model fashion; there was no pushing or shoving, no skylarking. They wended their way from cage to cage, absorbed and fascinated, uttering amazed cries of ‘Wah!’ at each new wonder and clicking their fingers in delight. Finally, when the last group had been led round, the Headmaster grouped all the boys at the bottom of the steps and then turned to me, beaming.

  ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘we are very grateful to you for allowing us to see your zoological collections. May I ask if you would be kind enough to answer some of the boys’ questions?’

  ‘Yes, with pleasure,’ I said, taking up my stand on the steps above the crowd.

  ‘Boys,’ roared the Head, ‘Mr Durrell has kindly say that he will answer any questions. Now who has a question?’

  The sea of black faces below me screwed themselves up in thought, tongues protruded, toes wiggled in the dust. Then, slowly at first, but with increasing speed as they lost their embarrassment, they shot questions at me, all of which were extremely intelligent and sensible. There was, I noticed, one small boy in the front of the crowd who had, throughout the proceedings, fixed me with a basilisk eye. His brow was furrowed with concentration, and he stood stiffly at attention. At last, when the supply of questions started to peter out, he suddenly summoned up all his courage, and shot his hand up.

  ‘Yes, Uano, what is your question?’ asked the Head, smiling down fondly at the boy.

  The boy took a deep breath and then fired his question at me rapidly. ‘Please, sah, can Mr Durrell tell us why he take so many photographs of the Fon’s wives?’

  The smile vanished from the Head’s face and he threw me a look of chagrin.

  ‘That is not a zoological question, Uano,’ he pointed out severely.

  ‘But please, sah, why?’ repeated the child stubbornly.

  The Head scowled ferociously. ‘That is not a zoological question,’ he thundered. ‘Mr Durrell only said he would answer zoological questions. The matter of the Fon’s wives is not zoological.’

  ‘Well, loosely speaking it could be called biological, Headmaster, couldn’t it?’ I asked, coming to the lad’s rescue.

  ‘But, sir, they shouldn’t ask you questions like that,’ said the Head, mopping his face.

  ‘Well, I don’t mind answering. The reason is that, in my country, everyone is very interested to know how people in other parts of the world live and what they look like. I can tell them, of course, but it’s not the same as if they see a photograph. With a photograph they know exactly what everything is like.’

  ‘There …’ said the Headmaster, running a finger round the inside of his collar. ‘There, Mr Durrell has answered your question. Now, he is a very busy man so there is no more time for further questions. Kindly get into line.’

  The boys formed themselves once more into two orderly lines, while the Headmaster shook my hand and earnestly assured me that they were all most grateful. Then he turned once more to the boys.

  ‘Now, to show our appreciation to Mr Durrell I want three hearty cheers.’

  Two hundred young lungs boomed out the hearty cheers. Then the boys at the head of the line produced from bags they were carrying several bamboo flutes and two small drums. The Headmaster waved his hand and they started to walk off down the road, led by the school band playing, of all things, ‘Men of Harlech’. The Head followed them mopping his face, and the dark looks he kept darting at young Uano’s back did not augur well for the boy’s prospects when he got back to the classroom.

  That evening the Fon came over for a drink and, after we had shown him the new additions to the collection, we sat on the verandah and I told him about Uano’s zoolog
ical question. The Fon laughed and laughed, particularly at the embarrassment of the Headmaster. ‘Why you never tell um,’ he inquired, wiping his eyes, ‘why you never tell um dat you take dis photo of dis ma wife for show all Europeans for your country dat Bafut women be beautiful?’

  ‘Dis boy na picken,’ I said solemnly. ‘I think sometime he be too small to understand dis woman palaver.’

  ‘Na true, na true,’ said the Fon, chuckling, ‘’e be picken. ’E catch lucky, ’e no get women for humbug him.’

  ‘They tell me, my friend,’ I said, trying to steer the conversation away from the pros and cons of married life, ‘they tell me tomorrow you go for N’dop. Na so?’

  ‘Na so,’ said the Fon, ‘I go for two days, for Court. I go come back for morning time tomorrow tomorrow.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, raising my glass, ‘safe journey, my friend.’

  The following morning, clad in splendid yellow and black robes and wearing a curious hat, heavily embroidered, with long, drooping ear flaps, the Fon took his seat in the front of his new Land-Rover. Into the back went the necessities of travel: three bottles of Scotch, his favourite wife and three council members. He waved vigorously to us until the vehicle rounded the corner and was lost from sight.

  That evening, having finished the last chores of the day, I went out on to the front verandah for a breath of air. In the great courtyard below I noticed large numbers of the Fon’s children assembling. Curiously I watched them. They grouped them selves in a huge circle in the centre of the compound and, after much discussion and argument, they started to sing and clap their hands rhythmically, accompanied by a seven-year-old who stood in the centre of the circle beating a drum. Standing like this they lifted up their young voices and sang some of the most beautiful and haunting of the Bafut songs. This, I could tell, was not just an ordinary gathering of children; they had assembled there for some definite purpose, but what they were celebrating (unless it was their father’s departure) I could not think. I stood there watching them for a long time and then John, our houseboy, appeared at my elbow in his unnervingly silent way.

  ‘Dinner ready, sah,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you, John. Tell me, why all dis picken sing for the Fon’s compound?’

  John smiled shyly. ‘Because de Fon done go for N’dop, sah.’

  ‘Yes, but why they sing?’

  ‘If the Fon no be here, sah, each night dis picken must for sing inside de Fon’s compound. So dey keep dis his compound warm.’

  This, I thought, was a delightful idea. I peered down at the circle of children, singing lustily in the gloomy wastes of the great courtyard, to keep their father’s compound warm.

  ‘Why they never dance?’ I asked.

  ‘Dey never get light, sah.’

  ‘Take them the pressure light from the bedroom. Tell them I send it so that I can help keep the Fon’s compound warm.’

  ‘Yes, sah,’ said John. He hurried off to fetch the light and presently I saw it cast a golden pool round the circle of children. There was a pause in the singing, while John delivered my message, and then came a series of delighted shrieks and echoing up to me the shrill voices crying, ‘Tank you, Masa, tank you.’

  As we sat down to dinner the children were singing like larks, and stamping and weaving their way round the lamp, their shadows long and attenuated, thrown half-way across the courtyard by the softly hissing lamp in their midst.

  Mail by Hand

  My good friend,

  Would you like to come and have a drink with us this evening at eight o’clock?

  Your friend,

  Gerald Durrell

  My good friend,

  Expect me at 7.30 p.m. Thanks.

  Your good friend,

  Fon of Bafut

  Chapter Five

  Film Star Beef

  There are several different ways of making an animal film, and probably one of the best methods is to employ a team of cameramen who spend about two years in some tropical part of the world filming the animals in their natural state. Unfortunately this method is expensive, and unless you have the time and the resources of Hollywood behind you it is out of the question.

  For someone like myself, with only a limited amount of time and money to spend in a country, the only way to film animals is under controlled conditions. The difficulties of trying to film wild animals in a tropical forest are enough to make even the most ardent photographer grow pale. To begin with you hardly ever see a wild animal and, when you do, it is generally only a momentary glimpse as it scuttles off into the undergrowth. To be in the right spot at the right time with your camera set up, your exposure correct and an animal in front of you in a suitable setting, engaged in some interesting and filmable action, would be almost a miracle. So, the only way round this is to catch your animal first and establish it in captivity. Once it has lost some of its fear of human beings you can begin work. Inside a huge netting ‘room’ you create a scene which is as much like the animal’s natural habitat as possible, and yet which is – photographically speaking – suitable. That is to say, it must not have too many holes in which a shy creature can hide, your undergrowth must not be so thick that you get awkward patches of shade, and so on. Then you introduce your animal to the set, and allow it time to settle down, which may be anything from an hour to a couple of days.

  It is essential, of course, to have a good knowledge of the animal’s habits, and to know how it will react under certain circumstances. For example, a hungry pouched rat, if released in an appropriate setting and finding a lavish selection of forest fruits on the ground, will promptly proceed to stuff as many of them into his immense cheek pouches as they will hold, so that in the end he looks as though he is suffering from a particularly virulent attack of mumps. If you don’t want to end up with nothing more exciting than a series of pictures of some creature wandering aimlessly to and fro amid bushes and grass, you must provide the circumstances which will allow it to display some interesting habit or action. However, even when you have reached this stage you still require two other things: patience and luck. An animal – even a tame one – cannot be told what to do like a human actor. Sometimes a creature which has performed a certain action day after day for weeks will, when faced with a camera, develop an acute attack of stage fright, and refuse to perform. When you have spent hours in the hot sun getting everything ready, to be treated to this sort of display of temperament makes you feel positively homicidal.

  A prize example of the difficulties of animal photography was, I think, the day we attempted to photograph the water chevrotain. These delightful little antelopes are about the size of a fox-terrier, with a rich chestnut coat handsomely marked with streaks and spots of white. Small and dainty, the water chevrotain is extremely photogenic. There are several interesting points about the chevrotain, one of which is its adaptation to a semi-aquatic life in the wild state. It spends most of its time wading and swimming in streams in the forest and can even swim for considerable distances under water. The second curious thing is that it has a passion for snails and beetles, and such carnivorous habits in an antelope are most unusual. The third notable characteristic is its extraordinary placidity and tameness: I have known a chevrotain, an hour after capture, take food from my hand and allow me to tickle its ears, for all the world as if it had been born in captivity.

  Our water chevrotain was no exception; she was ridiculously tame, adored having her head and tummy scratched and would engulf, with every sign of satisfaction, any quantity of snails and beetles you cared to provide. Apart from this she spent her spare time trying to bathe in her water bowl, into which she could just jam – with considerable effort – the extreme rear end of her body.

  So, to display her carnivorous and aquatic habits, I designed a set embracing a section of river bank. The undergrowth was carefully placed so that it would show off her perfect adaptive coloration to the best advantage. One morning, when the sky was free from cloud and the sun was in the right place, we carr
ied the chevrotain cage out to the set and prepared to release her.

  ‘The only thing I’m afraid of,’ I said to Jacquie, ‘is that I’m not going to get sufficient movement out of her. You know how quiet she is … she’ll probably walk into the middle of the set and refuse to move.’

  ‘Well, if we offer her a snail or something from the other side I should think she’ll walk across,’ said Jacquie.

  ‘As long as she doesn’t just stand there, like a cow in a field. I want to get some movement out of her,’ I said.

  I got considerably more movement out of her than I anticipated. The moment the slide of her cage was lifted she stepped out daintily and paused with one slender hoof raised. I started the camera and awaited her next move. Her next move was somewhat unexpected. She shot across my carefully prepared set like a rocket, went right through the netting wall as if it had not been there and disappeared into the undergrowth in the middle distance before any of us could make a move to stop her. Our reactions were slow, because this was the last thing we had expected, but as I saw my precious chevrotain disappearing from view I uttered such a wail of anguish that everyone, including Phillip the cook, dropped whatever they were doing and assembled on the scene like magic.