Gerald Durrell - The Overloaded Ark

I dozed for a time, and presently I sat up and looked about me: not thirty feet away from me, among the golden tufts of grass, stood a handsome spotted cat gazing at me with an expression of meditative appraisal. For one frightful moment I thought it was a leopard, but a longer look and I recognized it as a Serval, an animal much smaller, and with a brownish coat covered with small round spots. My chief feeling was one of surprise, for every hunter, black or white, and nearly every book that has been written about the forest assures one that if you catch a glimpse of a great cat once in fifty years you are doing fine. So I was filled with a mixture of apprehension and pleasure on finding the Serval there when I awoke.

It stood quite still, regarding me thoughtfully, and the tip of its tail moved very gently among the grass stalks. I had seen domestic cats looking like this at sparrows, twitching their tails, and I did not feel very happy about it. Also, I was stark naked, and I have found that in moments of crisis to have no clothes on gives one a terribly unprotected feeling. I glared at the Serval, wishing that I had my shorts on and that I could think of some way of capturing it without the risk of being disembowelled. The Serval blinked its eyes and looked as though it was considering lying down in the warm grass and joining me in a nap. Just at that moment an uproar broke out from the direction of the camp, and the cat, after glancing hurriedly over its shoulder in the direction of the noise, disappeared into the undergrowth with a swift smooth rush. I struggled hastily into my shorts and shoes, and although I was not long in reaching the spot where the cat had entered the bushes, I could see no sign of it. In the warm, still air there hung a strong, pungent odour, and in the patch of soft earth was one paw mark. Cursing myself; the carriers, and the Serval with equal vehemence, I made my way back to camp, and here I found out the reason for the noise that had startled the cat.

One side of the kitchen had collapsed, and everyone was standing around arguing and shouting, while the cook, his hair full of grass, was dancing with rage. I took the Tailor aside, out of earshot of the more timid members of my retinue, and told him what I had just seen.

“It was a tiger, sir?”he asked.

A tiger in pidgin means a leopard, a typical example of how animals are wrongly named.

“No, it wasn’t a tiger: it was like one, but smaller, and with much smaller mark-mark for his skin.” “Ah, yes, I know this animal,” said the Tailor.

“Well, how can we catch it? If there’s one up here there must be others, no be so?”

“Na so, sir,” he agreed. “What we want is dogs: I know some hunter man near Bakebe who get fine dogs: shalt I go send him message to come up?”

“Yes, tell him to come up here to-morrow if he can.”

The Tailor went off to arrange this, and I went to see what lunch had been salvaged out of the wreckage of the kitchen.

That afternoon I wandered off alone into the forest, keeping the bulk of N’da Ali on my left so that I would not get lost. I was going nowhere in particular, and so I walked slowly, pausing often to examine the trees and surrounding undergrowth for signs of life. I was watching a huge solitary ant wandering about the leaf-mould, when I heard a rustle of leaves in a tree close by, followed by a loud “tchack! . . . tchack!”. A branch dipped gracefully and along it a pair of small squirrels came running, tails streaming out behind them. I realized with delight that they were Black-eared Squirrels, a rather rare forest animal which I had not seen before. With my field-glasses I could see that they were male and female, and apparently engaged in the time-honoured method of flirtation. The female leapt from the end of the slender branch and landed on another some ten feet away, and the male followed her, uttering his sharp cry of “tchack! . . . tchack! . . .” I moved a little closer to the tree so that I could see them more easily, and found that they were now playing a form of hide- and-seek round the trunk. They were delightful little animals to look at: they had orange-coloured heads with a narrow edge of black round their small ears: the upper parts were brindled greenish, and along the sides was a line composed of little white dots. Their tummies were orange-yellow, as were their chests. But it was their tails that captivated me. The top surface was banded faintly with white and black, but the underside was the most vivid shade of orange-red. As they ran along the branches the tail would be held out straight, but when they stopped they would flick it over their backs so that the tip hung down almost on the nose. Then they would sit quite still and flick their tails with an undulating motion for a few seconds at a time, so that the vivid underside gleamed and flickered like a candle flame in a draught. I watched these squirrels leaping and scurrying around that tree for half an hour, bobbing and bowing to each other and flicking their tails among the green leaves, and I have rarely witnessed such enchanting play between two animals. Slowly they played from tree to tree, and I followed them, my field-glasses glued to my eyes. Then, to my annoyance, I stepped on a dry twig: the squirrels froze on a branch and the male cried out again, but instead of being gentle and endearing the cry was now sharp and full of warning. The next minute they were gone, and only a slight movement of leaves showed the place where they had been.

I walked on, considering my luck: in the space of a few hours I had seen a Serval and two squirrels, and this was a record for any day. I presumed that, as the mountain was so rarely visited by human beings, the animal population was less suspicious than in the lowlands. Also, of course, the forest here was more open, being broken by cliffs and grass fields, and this made the animals easier to see and approach. As I was musing on this the silence of the forest was suddenly shattered by the most blood-curdling scream, which was followed by bursts of horrible, echoing maniacal laughter, that screeched and gurgled through the trees, and then died to a dreadful whimpering which eventually ceased. I stood frozen in my tracks, and my scalp pricked with fright: I have heard some ghastly sounds at one time and another, but for sheer horrific impact this was hard to beat. It sounded like a magnified recording of a party in a padded cell. After a few minutes’ silence I summoned what little courage I possessed and crept through the trees in the direction from which the sounds had come. Suddenly it broke out again, spine-chilling gurgles of laughter interspersed with shrill screams, but it was much farther away now, and I knew that I should not catch up with whatever was producing it. Then suddenly I realized what was making this fearsome noise: it was the evening serenade of a troop of chimpanzees. I had often heard chimps laugh and scream in captivity, but I had never, until that moment, heard a troop of them holding a concert in the forest which gave their cries an echoing quality. I defy anyone, even someone who has had experience with chimps, to stand on N’da Ali and listen to these apes at their evening song without getting a shudder down his spine.

After we had been for some days on N’da Ali I learnt the habits of this crowd of apes. In the early morning they would be high up the mountain screaming and laughing among the tall cliffs; at midday they would be in the thick forest lower down, where they could find shade from the sun, and at this time they were almost silent; in the evening they would descend to the great step along the side of the mountain on which we were camped, and treat us to an evening concert which was prolonged and nerve-shattering. Then, as darkness fell, they would grow silent except for an occasional whimper. Their movement was very regular, and you could tell with reasonable accuracy what time of day it was by listening to hear which part of the forest they were in.