Gerald Durrell - A Zoo in My Luggage

‘Hallo, Foka, welcome. Come in,’ I said.

He came into the room carrying a bundle under his arm, and smiled at me shyly.

‘De Fon send dis for you, sah,’ he said, and handed the bundle to me. Somewhat mystified, I unravelled it. Inside was a carved bamboo walking stick, a small heavily embroidered skull cap, and a set of robes in yellow and black, with a beautifully embroidered collar.

‘Dis na Fon’s clothes,’ explained Foka. ‘’E send um for you. De Fon ’e tell me say dat now you be second Fon for Bafut.’

‘Wah!’ I exclaimed, genuinely touched. ‘Na fine ting dis your father done do for me.’

Foka grinned delightedly at my obvious pleasure.

‘Which side you father now. ’E done go for bed?’ I asked.

‘No, sah, ’e dere dere for dancing house.’

I slipped the robes over my head, adjusted my sleeves, placed the ornate little skull cap on my head, grasped the walking stick in one hand and a bottle of whisky in the other, and turned to Foka.

‘I look good?’ I inquired.

‘Fine, sah, na fine,’ he said, beaming.

‘Good. Then take me to your father.’

He led me across the great, empty compound and through the maze of huts towards the dancing house, where we could hear the thud of drums and the pipe of flutes. I entered the door and paused for a moment. The band in sheer astonishment stopped dead. There was a rustle of amazement from the assembled company, and I could see the Fon seated at the far end of the room, his glass arrested half-way to his mouth. I knew what I had to do, for on many occasions I had watched the councillors approaching the Fon to pay homage or ask a favour. In dead silence I made my way down the length of the dance hall, my robes swishing round my ankles. I stopped in front of the Fon’s chair, half crouched before him and clapped my hands three times in greeting. There was a moment’s silence and then pandemonium broke loose.

The wives and the council members screamed and hooted with delight, the Fon, his face split in a grin of pleasure, leapt from his chair and, seizing my elbows, pulled me to my feet and embraced me.

‘My friend, my friend, welcome, welcome,’ he roared, shaking with gusts of laughter.

‘You see,’ I said, spreading my arms so that the long sleeves of the robe hung down like flags, ‘You, see, I be Bafut man now.’

‘Na true, na true, my friend. Dis clothes na my own one. I give for you so you be Bafut man,’ he crowed.

We sat down and the Fon grinned at me.

‘You like dis ma clothes?’ he asked.

‘Yes, na fine one. Dis na fine ting you do for me, my friend,’ I said.

‘Good, good, now you be Fon same same for me,’ he laughed.

Then his eyes fastened pensively on the bottle of whisky I had brought.

‘Good,’ he repeated, ‘now we go drink and have happy time.’ It was not until three thirty that morning that I crawled tiredly out of my robes and crept under my mosquito net.

‘Did you have a good time?’ inquired Jacquie sleepily from her bed.

‘Yes,’ I yawned. ‘But it’s a jolly exhausting process being Deputy Fon of Bafut.’

The next morning the lorries arrived an hour and a half before the time they had been asked to put in an appearance. This extraordinary circumstance – surely unparalleled in Cameroon history – allowed us plenty of time to load up. Loading up a collection of animals is quite an art. First of all you have to put all your equipment into the lorry. Then the animal cages are placed towards the tailboard of the vehicle, where they will get the maximum amount of air. But cages cannot be pushed in haphazardly. They have to be wedged in such a way that there are air spaces between each cage, and you have to make sure that the cages are not facing each other, or during the journey a monkey will go and push its hand through the wire of a cage opposite and get itself bitten by a civet; or an owl (merely by being an owl and peering), if placed opposite a cage of small birds, will work them into such a state of hysteria that they will probably all be dead at the end of your journey. On top of all this you must pack your cages in such a way that all the stuff that is liable to need attention en route is right at the back and easily accessible. By nine o’clock, the last lorry had been loaded and driven into the shade under the trees, and we could wipe the sweat from our faces and have a brief rest on the verandah. Here the Fon joined us presently.

‘My friend,’ he said, watching me pour out the last enormous whisky we were to enjoy together, ‘I sorry too much you go. We done have happy time for Bafut, eh?’

‘Very happy time, my friend.’

‘Shin-shin,’ said the Fon.

‘Chirri-ho,’ I replied.

He walked down the long flight of steps with us, and at the bottom shook hands. Then he put his hands on my shoulders and peered into my face.

‘I hope you an’ all dis your animal walka good, my friend,’ he said, ‘and arrive quick-quick for your country.’

Jacquie and I clambered up into the hot, airless interior of the lorry’s cab and the engine roared to life. The Fon raised his large hand in salute, the lorry jolted forward and, trailing a cloud of red dust, we shuddered off along the road, over the golden-green hills towards the distant coast.

The trip down to the coast occupied three days, and was as unpleasant and nerve-racking as any trip with a collection of animals always is. Every few hours the lorries had to stop so that the small bird cages could be unloaded, laid along the side of the road, and their occupants allowed to feed. Without this halt the small birds would all die very quickly, for they seemed to lack the sense to feed while the lorry was in motion. Then the delicate amphibians had to be taken out in their cloth bags and dipped in a local stream every hour or so, for as we got down into the forested lowlands the heat became intense, and unless this was done they soon dried up and died. Most of the road surfaces were pitted with potholes and ruts, and as the lorries dipped and swayed and shuddered over them we sat uncomfortably in the front seats, wondering miserably what precious creature had been maimed or perhaps killed by the last bump. At one point we were overtaken by a heavy rainfall, and the road immediately turned into a sea of glutinous red mud, that sprayed up from under the lorry wheels like blood-stained porridge; then one of the lorries – an enormous four-wheel-drive Bedford – got into a skid from which the driver could not extricate himself, and ended on her side in the ditch. After an hour’s digging round her wheels and laying branches so that her tyres could get a grip, we managed to get her out; and fortunately none of the animals were any the worse for their experience.

But we were filled with a sense of relief as the vehicles roared down through the banana groves to the port. Here the animals and equipment were unloaded and then stacked on the little flat-topped railway waggons used for ferrying bananas to the side of the ship. These chugged and rattled their way through half a mile of mangrove swamp and then drew up on the wooden jetty where the ship was tied up. Once more the collection was unloaded and stacked in the slings, ready to be hoisted aboard. On the ship I made my way down to the forward hatch, where the animals were to be stacked, to supervise the unloading. As the first load of animals was touching down on the deck a sailor appeared, wiping his hands on a bundle of cotton waste. He peered over the rail at the line of railway trucks, piled high with cages, and then he looked at me and grinned.