Gerald Durrell - The Bafut Beagles

Although Mary treated us and the staff with great gentleness, she never forgot that she had a grudge against Africans in general, and she used to pick on any strange ones that came to camp. She would grin at them ingratiatingly and slap her chest, or turn somersaults – anything to gain their attention. By her antics she would lure them closer and closer to the cage looking the picture of cheerful good humour, while her shrewd eyes judged the distance carefully. Suddenly the long and powerful arm would shoot out through the bars, there would be a loud ripping noise, a yelp of fright from the African, and Mary would be dancing round her cage triumphantly waving a torn shirt or singlet that she had pulled off her admirer's back. Her strength was extraordinary, and it cost me a small fortune in replacements until I put her cage in such a position that she could not commit these outrages.

The monkey collection kept up a continuous noise all through the day, but in the afternoon, at about four-thirty, this rose to a crescendo of sound that would tax the strongest nerves, for it was at this time that the monkeys had their milk. About four they would start to get impatient, leaping and jumping about their cages, turning somersaults, or sitting with their faces pressed to the bars making mournful squeaks. As soon as the one of clean pots was laid out, however, and the great kerosene tin full of warm milk, malt and cod-liver oil, sugar and calcium came in sight, a wave of excitement would sweep the cages and the uproar would be deafening. The chimps would be giving prolonged hoots through pursed lips and thumping on the sides of their cages with their fists, the Drills would be uttering their loud and penetrating 'Ar-ar-ar-ar-ar-erererer!' cries, like miniature machine-guns, the Guenons would be giving faint, bird-like whistles and trills, the Patas monkeys would be dancing up and down like mad ballerinas, shouting 'Proup … proup' plaintively, and the beautiful Colobus, with her swaying shawl of white and black hair, would be calling 'Arroup! Arroup! Arroup! ye-ye-ye-ye!° in a commanding tone of voice. As we moved along the cages, pushing the pots of milk through the doors, the noises would gradually cease, until all that could be heard was a low snorting, sucking sound, interspersed by an occasional cough as some milk went down the wrong way. Then, the pots empty, the monkeys would climb up on to their perches and sit there, their bellies bulging, uttering loud and satisfied belches at regular intervals. After a while they would all climb down again on to the floor to examine their pots and make quite sure there was no milk left in them, even picking them up and looking underneath. Then they would curl up on their perches in the evening sun and fall into a bloated stupor, while peace came to the camp.

One of the things that I find particularly endearing about monkeys is the fact that they are completely uninhibited, and will perform any action they feel like with an entire lack of embarrassment. They will urinate copiously, or bend down and watch their own faeces appear with expressions of absorbed interest; they will mate or masturbate with great freedom, regardless of any audience. I have heard embarrassed human beings call monkeys dirty, filthy creatures when they have watched them innocently perform these actions in public, and it is an attitude of mind that I always find difficult to understand. After all, it is we, with our superior intelligence, who have decided that the perfectly natural functions of our bodies are something unclean; monkeys do not share our view.

Similarly, one of the things I liked about the Africans was this same innocent attitude towards the functions of the body. In this respect they were extremely like the monkeys. I had a wonderful example of this one day when a couple of rather stuffy missionaries came to look round the camp.

I showed them our various animals and birds, and they made a lot of unctuous comments about them. Then we came to the monkeys, and the missionaries were delighted with them. Presently, however, we reached a cage where a monkey was sitting on the perch in a curious hunched-up attitude.

'Oh! What’s s he doing?' cried the lady gaily, and before I could prevent her she had bent down to get a better look. She shot up again, her face a deep, rich scarlet, for the monkey had been whiling away the hours to meal time by sitting there and sucking himself.

We hurried through the rest of the monkey collection in record time, and I was much amused by the expression of frozen disgust that had replaced the look of benevolent delight on the lady missionary's face. They might be God's creatures, her expression implied, but she wished He would do something about their habits. However, as we rounded the corner of the marquee we were greeted by another of God's creatures in the shape of a lanky African hunter. He was a man who had brought in specimens regularly each week, but for the past fortnight he had not come near us.

' I see ya, Samuel!' I greeted him.

'I see ya,Masa,' he said, coming towards us.

'Which side you done go all dis time?' I asked; 'why you never bring me beef for two weeks, eh?'

' Eh! Masa, I done get sickness,' he explained.

'Sickness? Eh, sorry, my friend. Na what sickness you get?'

'Na my ghonereah, Masa,' he explained innocently, 'my ghonereah de worry me too much.'

The missionaries were among the people who never called twice at the camp site.

The last few days before you and the collection join the ship that is to take you back to England are always the most hectic of the whole trip. There are a thousand things that have to be done: lorries to hire, cages to strengthen, vast quantities of food to be purchased and crated up, and all this on top of the normal routine work of maintaining the collection.

One of the things that worried us most were the Idiurus. Our colony had by now diminished to four specimens, and we were determined to try to get them safely back to England. We had, after superhuman efforts, got them to eat avocado pears as well as palm-nuts, and on this diet they seemed to do quite well. I decided that if we took three dozen avocados with us, in varying stages from ripe to green, there would be enough to last the voyage and with some left over to use in England while the Idiurus were settling down. Accordingly, I called Jacob and informed him that he must procure three dozen avocados without delay. To my surprise, he looked at me as though I had taken leave of my senses.

'Avocado pear, sah?'he asked.

'Yes, avocado pear,' I said.

'I no fit get 'um sah,' he said mournfully.

'You no fit get 'um? Why not?'

'Avocado pear done finish,' said Jacob helplessly.

'Finish? What you mean, finish? I want you go for market and get 'um, not from kitchen.'

'Done finish for market, sah,' said Jacob patiently.

Suddenly it dawned on me what he was trying to explain: the season for avocado pears had finished, and he could not get me any. I would have to face the voyage with no supply of the fruit for the precious Idiurus.

It was just like the Idiurus, I reflected bitterly, to start eating something when it was going out of season. However, avocados I had to have, so in the few days at our disposal I marshalled the staff and made them scour the countryside for the fruit. By the time we were ready to move down country we had obtained a few small, shrivelled avocados, and that was all. These almost mummified remains had to last my precious Idiurus until we reached England.

We had to travel some two hundred miles down to the coast from our base camp, and it required three lorries and a small van to carry our collection. We travelled by night, for it was cooler for the animals, and the journey took us two days. It was one of the worst journeys I can ever remember. We had to stop the lorries every three hours, take out all the frog-boxes, and sprinkle them with cold water to prevent them drying up. Twice during each night we had to make prolonged stops to bottle-feed the young animals on warm milk which we carried ready mixed in thermos flasks. Then, when dawn came, we had to pull the lorries into the side of the road under the shade of the great trees, unload every single cage on to the grass and clean and feed every specimen. On the morning of the third day we arrived at the small rest-house on the coast which had been put at our disposal; here everything had to be unpacked once again and cleaned and fed before we could crawl into the house, eat a meal, and collapse on our beds to sleep. That evening parties of people from the local banana plantations came round to see the animals and, half dead with sleep, we were forced to conduct tours, answer questions and be polite.