Gerald Durrell - The Bafut Beagles

'All right. Bring um,' I said, sinking into a chair.

Presently Ben ushered in five embarrassed young hunters, all clutching spears. They bowed and said good evening politely. Apparently they had been at the feast that night, and had heard the Fon's speech; as they lived at a village some distance away, they thought they had better see me before they returned home, in order to find out exactly what kind of animals I wanted. I commended their zeal, distributed cigarettes, and brought out books and photographs. We pored over them for a long time, while I told them which creatures I particularly wanted and how much I was willing to pay. Just as they were about to go one young man noticed a drawing lying on my bed that I had not shown them.

'Masa want dis kind of beef?' he asked, pointing.

I peered at the drawing, and then looked at the young man: he seemed to be quite serious about it.

'Yes,' I said emphatically, 'I want dis kind of beef too much. Why, you savvay dis beef? '

'Yes, sah, I savvay um,' said the hunter.

I held out the picture to the men.

" Look um fine,' I said.

They all stared at the bit of paper.

'Now, for true, you savvay dis beef?' I asked again, trying to stifle my excitement.

'Yes, sah,' they said, 'we savvay um fine.'

I sat and gazed at them as though they had been beings from another world. Their casual identification of the picture, coming so unexpectedly, had quite startled me, for the drawing depicted a creature that I had long wanted to get hold of, perhaps the most remarkable amphibian in the world, known to scientists as Tricbobatrachus robustas , and to anyone else as the Hairy Frog.

A word of explanation is called for at this point. On a previous visit to the Cameroons I had set my heart on capturing some of these weird creatures, but without success. I had been operating then in the lowland forests, and all the hunters there to whom I had shown the picture stoutly denied that any such beast existed. They had looked at me pityingly when I insisted, taking it as just another example of the curiously unbalanced outlook of the white man, for did not everyone know that no frog had hair? Animals had hairs, birds had feathers, but frogs had skin and nothing more. Since it was patently obvious to them that the creature did not exist, they did not bother to search for it, in spite of the huge rewards I offered for its capture. What was the use of looking for a mythical monster, a frog with hairs? I had spent many exhausting nights In the forest, wading up and down streams in search of the elusive amphibian, but with no result, and I had come to believe that, in spite of the textbooks, the hunters were right: the creature was not to be found in the lowland forests. I had been so disillusioned by the scorn and derision which any mention of the Hairy Frog had provoked among the lowland tribes, that on my second trip I had omitted to show the drawing, feeling that the highland hunters would be of the same opinion as their relatives in the great forests. Hence my excitement and astonishment when the young hunter, unprompted, had identified the fabulous beast, and moreover wanted to know if I would like some.

I questioned the hunters closely, quivering like an expectant bloodhound. Yes, for the third time, they did know the beast; yes, it did have hair; yes, it was easy to catch. When I asked where it was found they made sweeping gestures, indicating that the woods were full of them. With glittering eyes I asked if they knew of any particular spot where the frogs were to be found. Yes, they knew of a 'small water' some two miles away where there were generally a few to be seen at night. That was enough for me, I rushed out on to the veranda and uttered a roar. The staff came tumbling out of their hut, bleary-eyed, half asleep, and assembled on the veranda.

'Dis hunter man savvay which side I go find dis frog 'e get beer-beer for 'e l'arse,' I explained, 'so we go catch um one time.'

' Noif, sah?' asked Ben, horrified.

'Yes, now, now, all you go get bag and torch. Quickly, quickly.'

'For night-time?' asked Ben faintly, for he loved his bed.

'Yes, now. Don't just stand there yawning, go and get torches and bags'

The staff, reluctant, puffy-eyed, and yawning, shuffled off to obey. Jacob, the cook, stopped for a moment to explain to me that he was a cook and not a hunter, and that he did not see why he should be expected to change his vocation at four o'clock in the morning.

'My friend,' I said firmly, 'if you no get bag and torch in five minutes, tomorrow you no be hunter man or cook, savvay?'

Hastily he followed the rest of the staff in search of his frog-hunting equipment. Within half an hour my sleepy band was assembled, and we set off down the dewy road on the hunt for the Hairy Frogs.

In the dim starlight we made our way down the dusty road, the grass on either side glistening and heavy with dew. There was no moon, which was most fortunate: when you are hunting at night by torchlight a moon is a hindrance and not a help, for it casts strange shadows in which your quarry can disappear, and it enfeebles your torch beam.

The little group of hunters walked ahead, wide awake and eager, while my well-paid staff trailed behind, dragging their toes in the dust and yawning prodigiously. Only Jacob, having decided that, as the hunt was inevitable, he had better make the best of it, walked beside me. Occasionally he would glance over his shoulder with a snort of derision, as a more than usually powerful yawn made itself heard from behind.

'Dis people no get power,' he said scornfully.

'I tink sometime dey done forget I go pay five shillings for dis frog we go hunt,' I explained loudly and clearly. My voice carried well in the still night air, and immediately the yawning and the dragging footsteps ceased as the rear column became very much awake. Five shillings was a large sum to pay for a frog.

'I no forget,' said Jacob, slyly grinning up at me.

'That I do not doubt," I said severely; 'you're a thoroughly unprincipled West African Shylock.'

'Yes, sah,' Jacob agreed unemotionally. It was impossible to crush him: if he did not understand you he simply played safe and agreed with all you said.

We walked down the road for perhaps a mile and a half, then the hunters turned off on to a narrow path through the long grass, a path that was slippery with dew and that led in an erratic series of zig-zags up the side of a hill. All around us in the damp tangle of long grass the tiny frogs and crickets were calling, like a million Lilliputian metronomes; once a large, pale moth rose, spiralling vaguely from the side of the path, and as it fluttered upwards a nightjar came out of the shadows, swiftly and smoothly as an arrow, and I heard the click of its beak as the moth disappeared. The bird turned and skimmed off down the hillside as silently as it had come. When we reached the crest of the hill the hunters informed me that the small stream they had referred to lay in the valley ahead of us. It was a deep, narrow, shadow-filled deft that ran between the two smooth, buttock-shaped hills, and the curving line of the stream was marked by a dark fringe of small trees and bushes. As we descended into the gloom of the valley the sound of water came to us, gurgling and clopping among the boulders of its bed, and the surface of the path turned to glutinous clay that made unpleasant sucking noises round our feet as we picked our way down, slipping and sliding.

The stream fled down the valley, slithering down a series of wide, shallow, boulder-strewn steps; at the edge of each step was a diminutive waterfall, perhaps eight feet high, and here the stream gathered itself into a polished column of water and plunged down into a circular pool gouged out among the rocks, where it swirled round and round in a nest of silver bubbles before diving on among the litter of rocks towards the next fall. The long grass curved over the edge of the stream in an uncombed mane of golden hair, and among the glistening boulders grew delicate ferns and tiny plants embedded in thick moss that spread everywhere like a layer of green velvet. On the bank, walking delicately on tip-toe, were numbers of small pink and chocolate crabs, and as our torch beams picked them out they raised their claws menacingly and backed, with infinite caution, down the holes in the red clay that they had dug for themselves. Dozens of minute white moths rose from the long grass as we walked through it, and drifted out across the stream like a cloud of snowflakes. We squatted on the bank to have a smoke and discuss our plan of campaign. The hunters explained that the best place to search for frogs was in the pools at the base of the small waterfalls, but that you also found them under flat rocks in the shallower parts of the stream. I decided that we had better spread out in a line across the stream, and wade up it turning over every movable stone and searching every nook and cranny that might harbour a Hairy Frog. This we did, and for an hour we worked our way steadily uphill towards the source of the stream, splashing through the shallow icy water, slipping on the wet rocks, shining our torches into every hiding-place, and turning over the loose rocks with infinite care.