Gerald Durrell - The Overloaded Ark

The first things to break cover and make for the nets, under the impression that the grass field was on fire, were two beautiful, richly coloured skinks. One I captured with the butterfly net, but the other rushed at Elias, who made a half hearted swipe at it with a stick, and then stood watching the reptile scuttle off into the bushes.

“Elias, you haven’t lost it? . . ”

“’E go for bush, sah,” said Elias dismally.

“Why you no catch um . . . you no get hand?” I inquired angrily, brandishing my skink under his nose by way of illustration. He backed away hurriedly.

“Masa, na bad beef dat. If ’e go bite you, you go die.”

“Nonsense,” I retorted, and I pushed my little finger between the lizard’s half-open jaws and let him bite. It was no more than a slight pinch.

“You see? He no be bad beef. He no fit bite proper, no get power.”

“Masa, ’e get poison,” said Elias, watching fascinated while the skink chewed on my finger. “Na bad beef, sah, for true.”

“Weli, if he bite me I go die, no be so?”

“No, sah,” said Elias, with one of those wonderful twists of African logic which are impossible to argue against, “you be white man. If dat beef go chop black man he go die one time. White man different.”

I placed my skink in a cloth bag and we turned our attention back to the nets, in which were struggling three lovely rats, and a black, evil-looking shrew. The rats were a pale fawn colour, and covered with longitudinal lines of round, intense, cream-coloured spots. When we picked them up by their tails they hung relaxed and quiet, and we even handled them without receiving a bite. Later I found that these rats, although extremely timid, were the most easily tamed of the forest rats; after two days of captivity they would climb on to the palm of one’s hand to be fed.

The shrew, on the other hand, had a temper as black as his fur. Although he was a bare three inches long he struggled fiercely in the net, and as we tried to disentangle him he attacked us, his mouth open, and his long nose wiffling with rage. Once free of the net he sat up on his hind legs, bunched his tiny paws into fists, and shrieked defiance at us, daring us to touch him. With great difficulty we coaxed him into a box, where he sat, up to his waist in the dry grass with which I had filled it, and muttered wickedly to himself. I did not intend to keep him, for it was doubtful if such a tiny mite could survive the long and arduous voyage to England, but I wanted to keep him for a few days and study him at close range. To the Africans the fact that I sometimes went to all the trouble of capturing an animal only to keep it for a few days and then release it again, unharmed and uneaten, was sure proof that I was somewhat weak-minded.

The sun was slanting across the grass field as we packed up and left, turning the edge of the forest into a wall of glittering golden-green leaves. Darkness overtook us rapidly in the forest, and soon it was pitch dark beneath the trees. I stumbled along, tripping over roots and banging my head on branches to the accompaniment of innumerable “Sorry, sahs” from Elias. When we reached the fields around the village we found it was that moment of twilight before night enveloped the world: a pair of parrots flew swiftly into the forest at a great height above us, their screams and whistles echoing down to us. The scattered clouds were flushed gold and pink and green. The lights of the camp gleamed a welcome to us, and the smell of groundnut chop was wafted to my nostrils. I realized, rather ruefully, that before I could have a bath and some food all the captures would have to be housed and fed.

The bigger beef were almost as numerous as the small ones: they consisted of anything from the size of a domestic cat to that of an elephant. The bigger beef were, as a rule, much more easily captured, simply because they were more easily seen. After all, a creature the size of a mouse or squirrel does not need much undergrowth to conceal itself in, whereas something the size of a duiker does. Also the smaller beasts had an irritating habit of squeezing through the mesh of your nets, whereas once the bigger beef ran into a net you were fairly certain that it was yours.

One morning Elias and Andraia arrived at what seemed to me a most ungodly hour. Lying in the gloom of the tent I could hear them outside arguing in fierce whispers with Pious as to whether or not I was to be disturbed. Pious was a martinet on this point; it took a long time for me to teach him that newly arrived animals could not wait for attention. If someone arrived with a specimen while I was shaving, or eating, or cleaning the gun, Pious would majestically order him to wait. The poor specimen, having already endured a none too gentle capture, probably a day without food and water, and a long walk in the sun in an uncomfortable bag or sack, would probably expire with this additional wait. This applied particularly to birds. At first I could not get the bird trappers to understand that if they caught a bird last thing at night, and did not bring it to me until the following morning, its chances of living were so slight they were not worth considering. Always, when this was explained, I would get the same answer:

“Masa, dis na strong bird. Dis bird no fit die, Masa, for true.” In view of this attitude among the hunters I had to explain to Pious that an animal could not wait, and whatever time a specimen arrived, in the middle of lunch or the middle of the night, it was to be brought straight to me. After a great deal of shouting I thought that I had driven the point home, yet here he was keeping Elias and Andraia away from me: I presumed, from the argument going on outside the tent, that he had forgotten his instructions. It seemed evident that Elias and Andraia had been out into the forest rather early, and that they had got something and were anxious that I should purchase it before it died on their hands, while Pious was determined that I should not be disturbed before the lawful hour of six-thirty. I was annoyed.

“Pious!” I roared.

“Sah?”

After a pause he came into the tent bearing a steaming cup of tea in one hand. This placated me somewhat.

“Good morning, sah.”

“Good morning,” I answered, clutching the cup. “What’s all that row outside? Someone brought beef?”

“No, sah, Elias and Andraia come to take you for bush.”

“Good Lord, at this hour. Why so early?”

“They say,” said Pious, in a disbelieving tone of voice, “they find a hole for ground, very far.” “A hole for ground . . . you mean a cave?”

“Yes, sah.”

This was good news, for I had told the hunters to find some caves for us to investigate, but hitherto they had met with no success. I crawled out of bed and went forth resplendent in my blue and red dressing-gown.

“Good morning, Elias . . . Andraia.”

“Good morning, sah,” as usual in a chorus, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

“What’s all this about a hole?” I asked, sipping my tea with a lordly air. They tore their fascinated eyes away from my dressing-gown with an effort.

“Yesterday I done go for bush, Masa,” said Elias, “I done find hole for ground like Masa de want. Dere be some kind of beef dere for inside, I hear um.”

“You see dis beef?”

“No, sah, I no see um,” said Elias, shuffling his feet. Being by himself, I realized, he would not have ventured into the cave, for the noise may have been produced by a malignant ju-ju of some description.