Gerald Durrell - The Whispering Land

At first glance I decided that I did not like Dicky at all. He did not look to me the sort of person who had ever suffered, or, indeed, was capable of suffering. He was exquisitely dressed, too exquisitely dressed. He had a round, plump face, with boot-button eyes, a rather frail-looking moustache like a brown moth decorated his upper lip, and his dark hair was plastered down to his head with such care that it looked as if it had been painted on to his scalp.

"This is Dicky de Sola," said Marie, in some trepidation.

Dicky smiled at me, a smile that transformed his whole face.

"Marie have told you?" he said, dusting his chair fastidiously with his handkerchief before sitting down at the table, "I am delight to go to Patagonia, whom I love."

I began to warm to him. [39] to warm to somebody – to begin liking somebody hotter by and by

"If I am no useful, I will not come, but I can advise if you will allow, for I know the roads. You have a map? Ah, good, now let me explanation to you."

Together we pored over the map, and within half an hour Dicky had won me over [40] to win somebody over – to make somebody take a liking to you, feel friendly towards you completely. Not only did he have an intimate knowledge of the country we were to pass through, but his own brand of English, his charm and infectious humour had decided me. [41] to decide somebody – to cause somebody to come to a decision

"Well," I said, as we folded the maps away, "if you can really spare the time, we'd like you to come very much."

"Overwhelmingly," said Dicky, holding out his hand.

And on this rather cryptic utterance the bargain was sealed.

We set off for the south in the pearly grey dawn light of what promised to be a perfect day. The streets were empty and echoing, and the dew-drenched parks and squares had their edges frothed with great piles of fallen blooms from the palo borracho and jacaranda trees, heaps of glittering flowers in blue, yellow and pink.

On the outskirts of the city we rounded a corner and came upon the first sign of life we had seen since we had started, a covey [43] covey – here a group, a party (the word is generally used to designate a family of partridges) of dustmen indulging in their early morning ballet. This was such an extraordinary sight that we drove slowly behind them for some way in order to watch. The great dustcart rumbled down the centre of the road at a steady five miles an hour, and standing in the back, up to his knees in rubbish, stood the emptier. Four other men loped alongside the cart like wolves, darting off suddenly into dark doorways to reappear with, dustbins full of trash balanced on their shoulders. They would run up alongside the cart and throw the dustbin effortlessly into the air, and the man on the cart would catch it and empty it and throw it back, all in one fluid movement. The timing of this was superb, for as the empty dustbin was hurtling downwards a full one would be sailing up. They would pass in mid-air, and the full bin would be caught and emptied. Sometimes there would be four dustbins in the air at once. The whole action was performed in silence and with incredible speed.

Soon we left the edge of the city, just stirring to wakefulness, and sped out into the open countryside, golden in the rising sun. The early morning air was chilly, and Dicky had dressed for the occasion. He was wearing a long tweed overcoat and white gloves, and his dark, bland eyes and neat, butterfly-shaped moustache peered out from under a ridiculous deer-stalker hat [44] deer-stalker hat (or cap) – a cloth cap with a peak before and behind and two ear-flaps; it is often called a deer-stalker for short which he wore, he explained to me, in order to "keep the ears heated". Sophie and Marie crouched in strange prenatal postures [45] prenatal posture – the position of an unborn baby in the mother's womb in the back of the Land-Rover, on top of our mountainous pile of equipment, most of which, they insisted, had been packed in boxes with knife-like edges. Jacquie and I sat next to Dicky in the front seat, a map spread out across our laps, our heads nodding, as we endeavoured to work out our route. Some of the places we had to pass through were delightful: Chascomus, Dolores, Necochea, Tres Arroyos, [46] Tres Arroyos ['tres e'roies] (Sp.) - Three Streams and similar delicious names that slid enticingly off the tongue. At one point we passed through two villages, within a few miles of each other, one called "The Dead Christian" and the other "The Rich Indian". Marie's explanation of this strange nomenclature was that the Indian was rich because he killed the Christian, and had stolen all his money, but attractive though this story was, I felt it could not be the right one.

For two days we sped through the typical landscape of the Pampa, [47] the Pampa (or Pampas) – the extensive treeless plains of South America flat golden grassland in which the cattle grazed knee-deep; occasional clumps of eucalyptus trees, [48] eucalyptus tree – a tree of the myrtle family; most of the trees of this genus are important timber trees, and some secrete resinous gums (e. g. the Australian gum-tree) with their bleached and peeling trunks like leprous limbs; [49] like leprous limbs – like the arms and legs of people affected with leprosy, a chronic infectious disease characterized by a thickening and ulceration of the skin small, neat estancias, [50] estancia (Sp.) - farm, estate gleaming white in the shade of huge, carunculated [51] carunculated – covered with caruncles, small hard outgrowths ombu trees, that stood massively and grimly on their enormous squat trunks. In places the neat fences that lined the road were almost obliterated under a thick cloak of convolvulus, rung with electric-blue [52] electric-blue – a steely blue color flowers the size of saucers, and every third or fourth fence-post would have balanced upon it the strange, football-like nest of an oven-bird. [53] oven-bird [Avnba:d] – the popular name of various South American birds which build dome-shaped oven-like nests It was a lush, prosperous and well-fed-looking landscape that only just escaped being monotonous. Eventually, in the evening of the third day, we lost our way, and so we pulled in to the side of the road and argued over the map. Our destination was a town called Carmen de Patagones, on the north bank of the Rio Negro. I particularly wanted to spend the night here, because it was a town that Darwin had stayed in for some time during the voyage of the Beagle, and I was interested to see how it had changed in the last hundred years. So, in spite of near-mutiny on the part of the rest of the expedition, who wanted to stop at the first suitable place we came to, we drove on. As it turned out it was all we could have done anyway, for we did not pass a single habitation until we saw gleaming ahead of us a tiny cluster of feeble lights. Within ten minutes we were driving cautiously through the cobbled streets of Carmen de Patagones, lit by pale, trembling street lights. It was two o'clock in the morning, and every house was blank-faced [54] blank-faced – here inexpressive, lacking individuality and tightly shuttered. Our chances of finding anyone who could direct us to a hostelry were remote, and we certainly needed direction, for each house looked exactly like the ones on each side of it, and there was no indication as to whether it was a hotel or a private habitation. We stopped in the main square of the town and were arguing tiredly and irritably over this problem when suddenly, under one of the street lights, appeared an angel of mercy, in the shape of a tall, slim policeman clad in an immaculate uniform, his belt and boots gleaming. He saluted smartly, bowed to the female members of the party, and with old-world courtesy directed us up some side-roads to where he said we should find an hotel. We came to a great gloomy house, heavily shuttered, with a massive front door that would have done justice to a cathedral. We beat a sharp tattoo [55] tattoo [ta'tu:] – a continuous tapping or knocking on its weather-beaten surface and waited results patiently. Ten minutes later there was still no response from the inhabitants, and so Dicky, in desperation, launched an assault on the door that would, if it had succeeded, have awakened the dead. But as he lashed out at the door it swung mysteriously open under his assault, and displayed a long, dimly-lit passageway, with doors along each side, and a marble staircase leading to the upper floors. Dead tired and extremely hungry we were in no mood to consider other people's property, so we marched into the echoing hall like an invading army. We stood and shouted "¡Hola!" [56] ¡Hola! (Sp.) - Hullo! until the hotel rang with our shouts, but there was no response.