Gerald Durrell - The Overloaded Ark

“Watchnight, dis catar beef done run.”

“I no see um, sah,” mumbled the Watchnight, peering at the box.

“No, I know you no see um, because you no do your job properly. Now, dis beef no get plenty power run quick-quick. Sometime ’e dere dere for bush. Take your light and go look um. If you no find um I go take five shillings from your pay, you hear?”

“I hear, sah,” said the Watchnight dismally. He took his lamp and his spear and wandered off into the undergrowth. For an hour I could hear him moving about, breathing heavily, talking to himself to keep his spirits up:

“Catar beef, catar beef . . . eh . . . aehh! Now, which side dat beef done run? Eh . . . aehh! na trouble too much for me dis ting . . . which side dat blurry beef run? . . . I no see um. . . . Catar beef, you make trouble too much for me. . . .”

At length, just as I was dozing off, he uttered a yell of triumph:

“I find um, sah, I done find um here for bush.”

“All right, bring um quick.”

After some time he reappeared carrying a Pangolin by its tail, beaming delightedly at me. I carried it to the box, noticing as I did so that by lamplight the Pangolin seemed to have grown bigger. Taking the things off the top of the box, I thrust my hand in to shake up the dried banana leaves in the bottom, and my hand touched something round and hard and warm. There, buried under the banana leaves, was the original Pangolin: the Watchnight had caught an entirely different animal! I thrust this new addition inside and went back to bed. It was rather a problem, for, by my own laws, the Watchnight should be paid for this new beef he had caught. But to tell him that I had made a mistake and that the Pangolin had not escaped under his very eyes would, I felt, destroy the lesson. So I decided to say nothing, and salved my conscience by heavily overpaying him for some frogs he brought some days after. He seemed to be an extraordinarily lucky person, for some weeks later he did exactly the same thing with a giant spider that had escaped. This time the spider really had escaped and the Watchnight, hunting for it, discovered another wandering around camp of similar dimension but of a totally different and much rarer species. Bearing his capture back to its box, held gingerly on the end of a stick, he nearly stepped on the original arachnid in the middle of the compound.

These great Palm spiders were one of the few specimens I had that I could never bring myself to like wholeheartedly. Their bodies were the size of an egg and their long legs, spread out, would have exceeded the circumference of a saucer. They were a deep, shiny chocolate in colour, and covered with a thick pelt of tawny fur. Their small glittering eyes seemed to have a nasty evil expression. Most of them, if annoyed or teased with a twig, would retreat, but one or two of them would attack. They could jump two feet in a bound, leaping six inches off the ground or more. They would tilt themselves so that their great curved fangs could come into play, and the first pair of legs would be outspread, welcoming you into their hairy embrace. That their bite was poisonous I knew, but I doubt if it could kill you unless you were prone to blood poisoning.

One afternoon a man turned up with two little wicker baskets, one containing a fat, beautiful, and deadly Gaboon viper, and the other one of these revolting Palm spiders. When I had purchased them, the man asked me if I could attend to his hand which was wrapped up in a filthy piece of cloth. He had a deep wound in the thumb, which was slightly discoloured and swollen. I examined it, washed it, and put a clean bandage on. Then I asked him what had caused the wound.

“Beef done chop me,” he said laconically, gesturing at the baskets.

“Good God,” I said, really startled, “which beef, the snake or the other?”

“Oh, no, sah, not de snake . . . dat other beef . . . it de pain me too much, Masa. You no fit give me some kind of medicine for dis bite, sah?”

I gave him two aspirins and a strong glass of vivid yellow lime-juice, and assured him that it would cure him. He was very gratified, and returned the next day to ask for some more of that medicine that had done his bite so much good. I offered him two more aspirins, but he refused them. No, he didn’t want that medicine, he wanted the yellow one, as that was the one that had really done the trick.

Another aspect of the Cameroon mentality was demonstrated to me one day when a small boy appeared carrying a tortoise. On examination it proved to have a large hole bored in its shell, thus ruining it as a specimen, so I gave it back to the child and told him I did not want it, and why. Half an hour later another child appeared carrying the same tortoise. Thinking perhaps the first child’s tender years had prevented him from understanding, I explained all over again. Shortly afterwards a bigger child arrived carrying the same reptile. During the course of the day different people, ranging from toddlers to old men, all appeared and offered for sale the same wretched tortoise.

“Why,” I asked the last man who brought it, “why all you different people bring the same same beef eh? I done tell all dis different man dat I no go buy dis beef . . . look . . . ’e get hole for his back, you no see? Why you bring um so many times?”

“Eh, sometime if Masa no go buy from me he go buy from other man,” answered the tortoise’s temporary owner.

“Listen, my friend, you go tell your family that I no want dis beef, you hear? And if any man bring this beef to me again, I go beat him until he get hole for larse same same dis beef, understand?”

“Yes, sah,” he said, smiling, “Masa no want.” And that was the last I saw of the tortoise.

Another peculiar attitude of mind on the part of the beef bringers was the firm belief that, no matter how mangled a specimen was, I could be persuaded to buy it, by the simple process of telling me it was not hurt, and would, in all probability, live for years. This applied particularly to birds. At first, the brigade of small boys who tapped the forest creepers to obtain the white rubber-like substance which was used as bird-lime were firmly convinced that all I wanted was a bird. As long as it was still breathing, it mattered not that most of its feathers were missing, or if it had broken a leg or two. It took some time, and some pretty stiff arguments, to persuade them otherwise. The thing that really convinced them was the episode of the Pygmy Rails.

One morning I was examining the usual collection of wicker fish-traps crammed full of maimed birds which the boys had brought, and delivering a lecture on careful treatment of specimens. Just as I was unleashing my scorn and annoyance on this shuffling collection of teen-age beef bringers and their dreadful collection of birds, a small girl, perhaps six years old, wandered into the compound carrying a small receptacle cleverly woven out of dry grass and leaves. She came to a halt in front of me and, after surveying me silently and appraisingly for a moment, held out her basket.

“Na whatee?” I inquired.

“Na bird, Masa,” she piped.

I took the basket from her hands and peered into it, resigning myself to the fact that here was yet another basket full of useless creatures. Inside crouched three beautiful little birds, unhurt, and without a feather out of place. They had slender legs, and long delicate toes which, in the hands of normal bird trappers, would most certainly have been broken. No feathers had been pulled out of the wings, a favourite method of preventing a specimen flying away. They were in perfect condition. This, I felt, was too good an opportunity to miss. Picking out one of the Pygmy Rails I showed it silently to the gaping boys.

“Look,” I said, “here na picken woman who savvay catch bird pass you man picken. Look dis bird: he no get wound, he no get rope for his legs. Dis kind of bird I go buy, he no go die. If dis woman picken fit catch bird why you men picken no fit, eh? Now, you go see how much I go give for dis bird.”