Gerald Durrell - The Overloaded Ark

A few days later a panting boy rushed up from the village and informed me that there was a snake in a banana tree, and would I go and catch it. It so happened that the entire staff was out on various errands, and so John was the only one to whom I could appeal for help. Very reluctantly he left his bird feeding and accompanied me down the hill-side. At the village we found a crowd of about fifty people round a banana tree which grew at the back of one of the huts, and with much shouting they pointed out the snake to us. It was coiled in and out of a very large bunch of bananas at the top of the tree, and it surveyed us with a glittering eye. John asked me if it was poisonous, and I replied that, so far as I could see, it was a tree viper of sorts, and probably quite poisonous enough to make things interesting should it bite anyone. John retreated as far as the crowds would let him, and asked how I proposed to capture it. As far as I could see the best way was to cut down the bunch of bananas with the snake inside, and so we carefully ringed the area in which the fruit would fall, with the smallest mesh net we possessed, and I stationed John on the outside of this, armed with a stick to repel the snake should it try to get away. Then I borrowed a machete off a bystander, and asked the crowd if the owner of the tree would mind my cutting down the unripe fruit. Several voices assured me that he would not mind at all, and it was only later, when the real owner turned up, that I found out he objected very strongly and to the tune of several shillings. However, I approached the tree swinging my machete in a professional manner. The crowd had now increased considerably, and we were surrounded by a solid wedge of humanity all anxious to watch the white man’s snake- catching methods. When I discovered that I could not reach the bananas to cut the stem, they were all greatly amused.

“I shall have to cut the whole tree down,” I said to John.

“All right,” he replied, “only wish we could get rid of this crowd. If the damn thing makes a run for it someone will get bitten.”

“Don’t worry,” I said soothingly, “if it does make a run for it they’ll get out of the way quickly enough.”

I started to hack at the trunk of the tree. Now, the stem of a banana tree is deceptive: it looks quite solid, but in reality it is soft and fibrous and juicy, and very easily cut. This I did not know, so it was with considerable surprise that I felt the blade of the machete go right through the trunk at my second swipe, and the whole tree crashed earthwards. That it should fall exactly where John was standing was pure bad luck. With an agility of which I would not have thought him capable, he leapt to one side, and the tree missed him. The bunch of bananas was broken off by the fall and rolled and bounced its way across the ground to his feet, and the snake fell from it, wiggling angrily. The crowd, as I had predicted, faded away, and John was left facing the angry snake with nothing between them but a length of flimsy net. Apparently I had misjudged the size of the snake, for he proceeded to wiggle through the net with the greatest of ease, and then, before John could do anything to prevent it, it slithered between his legs and off into the undergrowth. It was useless to search for him in that thick mass of bushes, so I started to disentangle the net from the wreck of the banana tree. John watched me malevolently.

“I have decided,” he said at last, “that I am not cut out for this snake-charming stuff. In future you can catch all snakes yourself.”

“But they seem to like you,” I pointed out, “you fascinate them. Now, if we could only hang some nets round your legs, all the snakes rushing to get close to you would become entangled. You ought to be flattered, it’s not everyone that has this magnetic attraction for reptiles.”

“Thank you,” said John witheringly, “your suggestion about the nets, though I’ve no doubt it’s very sound, would, I feel, hamper my movements somewhat; I am quite happy exercising a fascination over birds, without enlarging my repertoire to include reptiles.” Then he stalked up the hill and left me to interview the owner of the banana tree who had just arrived.

The last affair came three days later. A voluble hunter arrived carrying a small basket in which nestled a fat and beautiful Gaboon Viper. The skin of these plump, squat-looking snakes is covered with the most intricate and colourful pattern, and having purchased it, I carried it in for John to admire. The reptile had recently shed his skin, so the colours glowed with life, a lovely patchwork of pink, red, fawn, silver, and chocolate. John admired it, but implored me to keep it safely locked

up.

“It’s deadly, isn’t it, old boy?”he asked.

“Yes, very deadly.”

“Well, for goodness’ sake keep it in its cage . . . remember the water-snakes. We don’t want a repetition of that.”

“Don’t worry, I’m having a special cage built for it.”

So the special cage was built, and the sluggish and deadly viper placed reverently inside. All would have been well if it had not been for the thunderstorm. This broke with unusual force just as I was having my bath and, remembering that the reptile cages were piled out in the open, I yelled to the animal staff to bring them in. If the cages got damp the wood warped, and it is surprising how small a crack a snake can squeeze through if it wants to. The cages were rushed inside and piled up near the monkeys. This proved my undoing.

John was seated near the table, in his pyjamas: he was busy cutting down some old fruit tins to make into water pots for the birds, and he was absorbed in his work. I was just putting the finishing touches to my toilet when I saw something move in the shadows beneath his chair. Putting on my dressing-gown I went closer to see what it was. There on the floor, about six inches away from John’s inadequately slippered feet, lay the Gaboon Viper. I had always believed, judging by what I had read and was told, that at moments like this one should speak quietly to the victim, thus avoiding panic and sudden movement. So, clearing my throat, I spoke calmly and gently:

“Keep quite still, old boy, the Gaboon Viper is under your chair.”

On looking back I feel that I should have left out any reference to the snake in my request. As it was, my remark had an extraordinary and arresting effect on my companion. He left the chair with a speed and suddenness that was startling, and suggestive of the better examples of levitation. The tin can, the hammer, and the tin cutters, went flying in various parts of the hut, and the supper table was all but overturned.

The Gaboon Viper, startled by all this activity, shot out from under the chair and wiggled determinedly towards the back of the monkey cages. I headed him off, and after a few tense minutes got him entangled in the folds of a butterfly-net, then I carried him and dumped him in his cage. I saw then the reason for his escape: the reptiles had been stacked too close to the monkeys, and a female Drill had amused herself by putting her paws through the bars and undoing all the cages she could reach. The first one, as always happens, belonged to the Gaboon Viper. John said little, but it was terse and to the point. I agreed with him wholeheartedly, for should the snake have bitten him he would not have survived: there was no snake-bite serum in the Cameroons, to the best of my knowledge, and the nearest doctor was twenty-five miles away, and we had no transport.

“Why don’t you go away again?” asked John plaintively. “It’s at least three weeks since you came back from Eshobi, high time you plunged back into the impenetrable bush in search of more beef.”