Gerald Durrell - The Whispering Land

Presently the party who had been arguing with the Chief of Customs returned despondently.

"No use," said David, "he's adamant. No signature, no departure."

We had twenty minutes to go. [477] We had twenty minutes to go. – We had twenty minutes at our disposal. At that moment we heard a car screech to a halt on the docks outside. We piled out on to the deck, and there, coming up the gangway, smiling triumphantly, were Marie and Willie, waving the necessary documents, all beautifully signed by what must be the finest, noblest despachante in the business. So, with ten minutes to go we all had a drink. I even gave Señor Garcia one.

Then the steward poked his head in to say that we would be casting off in a moment, and we trooped on to the deck. We said our goodbyes, and our tribe of friends made their way down on to the quay. Ropes were cast off, and slowly the gap between the ship and the dock widened, so that we could see the shuddering reflection of the quay lights in the dark waters. Presently the ship gained speed, and soon our friends were lost to sight, and all we could see was the great heap of multicoloured lights that was Buenos Aries.

As we turned away from the rail and made our way to our cabins, I remembered Darwin's words, written a century before. When speaking of the travelling naturalist he said: "He will discover how many truly kind-hearted people there are with whom he had never before had, or ever again will have, any further communication, who yet are ready to offer him most disinterested assistance."

For those that are interested here is an up-to-date account of the creatures we brought back. Claudius the tapir, whom I could once lift up in my arms – at the risk of a rupture – is now the size of a pony, and eagerly awaiting a bride when we can afford one.

Mathias and Martha, the coatimundis, have settled down to domestic bliss and have produced two sets of children. Martha, at the time of writing, is again in an interesting condition.

Juan and Juanita, the peccaries, also had two sets of babies, and are expecting a third.

Luna, the puma, the ocelot and the Geoffroy's cat are all flourishing, getting fatter with each passing day.

Blanco, the Tucuman Amazon, still says "Hijo de puta", but very softly now.

All the other birds, beasts and reptiles are equally well, and many showing signs of wanting to breed.

Which leaves me with only one thing to say and thus, I hope, stop people writing to ask me: my zoo is a private one, but it is open to the public every day of the year except Christmas Day.

So come and see us.

The title contains a pun, since the chanter deals with the customs of the country in two senses of the word:

(1) the way things are done by most people in a given country, its usual practices;

(2) the department of the government service that collects import duties, i.e. taxes paid to the government on imported goods ( Sp. aduana).

The pronoun she is sometimes used with the names of countries and towns.

jacaranda tree – a South American tree with hard brown wood (called rose-wood from its fragrance and widely used in cabinet-making)

palo borracho ( Sp. ) - borracho tree, another species of South American trees

a suicidal streak – an inclination to suicide

Land-Rover – make of car; a car able to move across the fields or country, not following roads, a cross-country car

feminine pulchritude – female beauty; using long bookish words of Latin and Greek origin, the author makes this phrase sound ironically pompous

the Argentine (or the Argentines) – another name for Argentina, now slightly archaic and therefore sounding more dignified

a cross between the Parthenon and the Reichstag – resembling at once the Parthenon, a world-famous, temple of Athena (on the Acropolis at Athens), and the building of the Reichstag (i.e. the former German legislative assembly) in Berlin

in the bowels – here within, in the innermost part

The verb weave (Past Ind. wove ) is here used figuratively, implying that the movement of the car resembled a shuttle carrying the weft-thread across between threads of warp, in the process of weaving.

to the best of my knowledge – as far as I know

warming to my work – here getting more and more angry and excited

de hand – Josefina's pronunciation of the hand (she asked the author to thrust his arm out of the window, giving a warning that she was going to turn). Josefina's knowledge of English is far from, perfect; the author occasionally reproduces some peculiarities of her pronunciation and her chaotic order of words. These deviations from the rules of grammar in the speech of non-English characters (Dicky de Sola, Luna, Coco and others) are easy to recognize and need not be specially commented upon.

screeched to a shuddering halt – suddenly stopped or halted with a screech

animal! (Sp.) - you beast! (Note that in the Spanish language exclamation and interrogation marks always appear not only at the end, but also at the beginning of a sentence or phrase, in inverted form.)

to meet our Maker (i.e. God) – a euphemistic paraphrase for to die

amidships – in the middle (of the ship), a naval term hero used figuratively

blurry – Josefina's pronunciation of bloody (a vulgar equivalent of damned); the words shock the author as being highly unsuitable for female conversation

Anglo-Saxon expletives – here strong language (oaths in English are mostly of Anglo-Saxon origin)

his… eau-de-cologne-encrusted brow – a solemn allusion to Seiior Garcia's habit of lavishly using eau-de-cologne

ante – Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), the author of the great Italian poem Divine Comedy, its first part being Inferno (Hell)

the numbing effect – here the paralyzing effect

tapir – a hoofed hog-like mammal of tropical America and the Malayan peninsula; tapirs have flexible snouts; feed on plants

gone wrong – here a bit disproportionate, somewhat unusual in appearance as far as elephants go

The author makes ironical use of a military cliché.

Jacquie – the author's wife ( short for Jacqueline)

Claudius ['klo:djos] – one of the Roman emperors (41-54 A. D.)

en route [a:n 'ru:t] (Fr.) - on the way

Great Dane – a large short-haired dog of a breed of massive size and great strength