Gerald Durrell - The Overloaded Ark

“Careful, Andraia, na bushcat,” whispered Elias warningly, for a full-grown civet is the size of a small collie dog.

But Andraia was too busy to answer, for clinging to the bark of the trunk with fingers and prehensile toes was a full-time job. Just as he reached the edge of the hole the civet launched itself out into space like a rocket. It shot through the air, and landed accurately on Elias’s chest with all four feet, its weight sending him spinning backwards. As it landed on his chest I saw its mouth open and close, and heard the chop of its jaws. It only missed making its teeth meet in his face because he was already off his balance and starting to fall backwards, and so its jaws missed him by about three inches. It leapt lightly off his prostrate body, paused for one brief moment to stare at me, and then in a couple of swift leaps disappeared into the forest. Elias picked himself up and grinned at me ruefully:

“Eh . . . aehh! Some man done put bad ju-ju for dis hunting I tink,” he said. “First we lose water- beef, next dis bush-cat. . . .”

“Consider yourself lucky you’ve still got a face left,” I said, for I had been considerably shaken by this display of ferocity on the part of the civet, an animal I had always thought was shy and retiring. Just at that moment a strangled yelp came from above us, and we shone our torches up to where Andraia was clinging like a lanky black spider.

“Na whatee?” asked Elias and I together.

“Na something else dere dere for inside,” said Andraia shrilly. “I hear noise for inside hole. . . .” He felt in his loincloth, and with some difficulty he withdrew his torch and shone it into the hole.

“Eh ... aehh!” he shouted, “na picken bushcat here for inside.”

For a long time Andraia performed the most extraordinary contortions to try and cling on to the tree, while shining the torch into the hole with one hand and endeavouring to insert the other into the hole to catch the baby. At length he succeeded, and his hand came into view holding a spitting, squirming young civet by the tail. Just as he got it out of the hole and was shouting, “Look um, look um,” in triumph, the baby bit him in the wrist.

Now Andraia was a complete coward about pain: if he got the smallest thorn in his foot he would put on an exaggerated limp as though he had just had all his toes amputated. So the sharp baby teeth of the civet were like so many hot needles in his wrist. Uttering an unearthly shriek he dropped the

torch, the civet, and released his precarious hold on the tree. He, the torch, and the civet crashed earthwards.

How Andraia was not killed by the fall I shall never know: the torch was smashed, and the baby civet landed on its head on one of the iron-hard buttress roots of the tree, and was knocked unconscious. It had a severe haemorrhage about ten minutes later and died without regaining consciousness. Andraia, apart from being severely shaken, was unhurt.

“Eh . . . aehh! Na true some man done put ju-ju for us,” said Elias again. Whether it was ju-ju or not, we were not worried by ill-luck for the rest of the night: on the contrary, we had very good luck. Shortly after our little affair with the civet we came to the banks of a wide stream, about three feet deep in the middle. The water was opaque, a deep chocolate brown colour, and even our torch beams could not pierce it. We had to wade up this stream for about half a mile, until we came to the path on the opposite bank which we were following. Though the surface of the stream was unruffled, there was a considerable undercurrent, and we felt it clutch our legs as we waded in. The water was ice-cold. We had reached the centre and were wading along as swiftly as the deep water and the current would let us, when I became aware that we were not the only occupants of the stream. All around us, coiling and shooting through the dark waters, were dozens of brown water snakes. They swam curiously alongside us, with only their heads showing above water, their tiny eyes glittering in the torchlight. Andraia became conscious of the snakes’ presence at the same moment, but his reactions were not the same as mine.

“Warr!”he screamed, and dropping the collecting bag he was carrying, he tried to run for the bank. He had forgotten the water. Here it was almost waist high, and any attempt at running was doomed to failure almost before it was started. As I had anticipated, the strength of the current caught him off his balance, and he fell into the water with a splash that sent every water-snake diving for cover. He surfaced some yards downstream, and struggled to his feet. His lovely sarong, which he had been carefully carrying on his head to protect it, was now a sodden mass.

“Na whatee?” asked Elias, turning round and surveying Andraia, wallowing in the stream like a wounded whale. He, apparently, had not seen the snakes.

“Na snake Elias,” spluttered Andraia, “na snake too much for dis water. Why we no fit pass for land?”

“Snake?” asked Elias, shining his torch about the calm waters.

“Na true, Elias,” I said, “na water-snake. Andraia de fear too much.”

“Eh . . . aehh!” exclaimed Elias wrathfully. “You stupid man, Andraia. You no savvay dis beef no go bite you if Masa be here?”

“Ah!” said Andraia, humbly, “I done forget dis ting.”

“What’s all this?” I asked. “Why snake no bite Andraia if I’m here?”

Standing in the middle of the stream while Andraia fished about for the collecting bag, Elias explained to me:

“If black man go for water him only, some kind of bad beef, like snake, go smell him, he go come one time and chop him. If black man go for water with white man, de beef smell de white man and he de fear too much, so he no go come.” “Only when we go for water dis ting happen?” I asked. “Yes, sah.”

It was a useful piece of knowledge, and I stored it away in my memory for future use. Andraia had by now collected all the things he had dropped, and I suggested that we should turn out the torches and wait to see if the water-snakes returned and, if they did, try to catch some. With a certain lack of enthusiasm my hunters agreed. We stood there in the water, in complete darkness, for about half an hour and then, at a prearranged signal, we all switched on our torches together. All around us were water-snakes, weaving silver patterns in the torchlight. Seizing the net I plunged after the nearest, and after a scramble, managed to get him hissing and wriggling into the net, and from there into the bag. Thus encouraged, Elias and Andraia joined in and within a very short time we had captured twenty of these snakes. But now they were growing wise, and the slightest movement on our part would send them all diving to the murky depths of the river, so we called off the hunt and continued on our way.

I don’t know what the attraction of that river was for these snakes, as I never saw them congregated in one spot in such numbers again. Often in the day, and also during our night hunts, we had waded long distances up rivers, but only occasionally had we seen an odd water-snake. In the half-mile we travelled up that stream we saw hundreds of them. It may have been some sort of mating gathering, or maybe a sudden abundance of food in that particular area which had attracted them. We never found out. Some weeks later we crossed the same stream at the same point during the night, and not a snake was to be seen. In places like this you come into contact with many enigmas of this sort, but, unfortunately, you have not the opportunity to investigate as fully as you would like. You can do little more than note them, and wonder about the reason. It is one of the most annoying things about collecting, that you have not the time to investigate these riddles and find an answer, fascinating though that investigation might prove.