Gerald Durrell - The Bafut Beagles

Our quarry had entangled himself very thoroughly, and he lay hunched up in the net, quivering and snorting, and occasionally making ineffectual attempts to bite through the mesh. Peering at it, I could see we had caught a very large Cane Rat, a creature known to the Africans as a Cutting-grass, a name which describes its habits very well, for with its large and well-developed incisors the Cutting-grass goes through the grass-fields – and the farmlands – like a mowing machine. It measured about two and a half feet in length, and was covered with a coarse brownish fur. It had a chubby, rather beaver-like face, small ears set close to the head, a thick naked tail, and large naked feet. It seemed so scared of my presence that I did not approach it until the hunters arrived, for fear it would break out of the net. It lay there quivering violently, and occasionally giving little jerks and leaps into the air, accompanying them with a despairing squeal. At the time, this action worried me quite a lot, for it looked as though the creature was in the last stages of a heart attack. It was only later when I grew to know these animals better, that I discovered they greeted any unusual experience with this display of hysteria, in the hope, I suppose, of frightening or confusing the enemy. In reality, Cane Rats are not very timid animals and would not hesitate to bury their large incisors in the back of your hand if you tried to take liberties with them. I kept a discreet distance until the hunters joined me; then we went forward and removed the rat from the net.

While we were manoeuvring him from the net into a stout bag, he suddenly jumped violently in my hands; to my surprise, as I tightened my grip on him, a large quantity of his fur came away in my fingers. When we had him safely in the bag, I sat down and examined the hair that my clutch had removed from his fat body; it was fairly long and quite thick, more like a coarse bristle; it is apparently planted so loosely in the skin that it comes away in handfuls at the slightest pull. Once it has come away, the hair takes a remarkably long time to grow again, and, as bald Cane Rats are not exactly beautiful, one had to handle them with extreme care.

After we had captured the Cane Rat we made our way slowly up the valley, spreading the net at intervals and beating likely-looking patches of undergrowth. When it was obvious that the valley would yield no more specimens, we rolled up the nets and made our way towards a large hill about half a mile away. This hill was so beautifully formed that it might well have been a barrow, the grave of some giant who had prowled the grassland in days gone by; on the very top was a cluster of boulders, each the size of a house, rearing themselves up like a monument. Growing in the narrow crevices and gullies between these rocks were a number of tiny trees, their trunks twisted and crumpled by the winds, each bearing a small cluster of bright golden fruit. In the long grass round the base of the trunks grew several purple and yellow orchids, and in places the great rocks were covered with a thick mat of climbing plant, a kind of convolvulus, from which dangled the ivory-coloured, trumpet-shaped flowers. The great pile of rocks, the bright flowers and the shaggy and misshapen trees formed a wonderful picture against the smouldering blue of the afternoon sky.

We climbed up into the shade of these rocks and squatted in the long grass to have our meal. The mountain grassland spread away from us in all directions, its multitude of colours shimmering and changing with the wind. The hill-crests were pale gold changing to white, while the valleys were pale greeny-blue, darker in places where a pompous cumulus cloud swept over, trailing a purple shadow in its wake. Directly ahead of us lay a long range of delicately sculptured hills whose base was almost hidden in a litter of great boulders and small trees. The hills were so smoothly and beautifully formed, and clad in grass which showed such a bewildering variety of greens, golds, purples, and whites, that they looked like a great rambling wave rearing up to break over the puny barrier of rocks and shrubs below. The

peace and silence of these heights was remarkable; nearly all sounds were created by the wind, and it was busy moving here and there, making each object produce its own song. It combed the grass and brought forth a soft, lisping rustle; it squeezed and wriggled between the cracks and joints of the rocks above us and made owl-like moans and sudden hoots of mirth; it pushed and wrestled with the tough little trees, making them creak and groan, and making their leaves flutter and purr like kittens. Yet all these small sounds seemed to enhance rather than destroy the silence of the grassland.

Suddenly the silence was shattered by a terrific uproar that broke out behind the massive pile of rocks. Working my way round there, I found the hunters and dogs in a group at the base of a giant rock. Three of the hunters were arguing vigorously with each other, while the fourth was dancing about, yelping with pain and scattering large quantities of blood from a wound in his hand, with the excited dogs leaping and barking frenziedly around him.

'Na whatee dis palaver?' I asked.

All four hunters turned on me and offered their separate descriptions of the event, their voices becoming louder and louder as they tried to shout each other down.

'Why you all de shout? How I go hear if you all go talk together like women, eh?' I said.

Having thus produced silence, I pointed at the bloodstained hunter.

'Now, how you done get dis wound, ma friend?'

'Masa, beef done chop me.'

' Beef? What kind of beef? '

'Eh! Masa, I no savvay. 'E de bite too much, sah.'

I examined his hand and found that a chunk the size of a shilling had been neatly removed from the palm. I rendered primitive first-aid, and then went into the matter of the animal that had bitten him.

'Which side dis beef?'

"E dere dere for dat hole, sah,' said the wounded one, pointing at a cleft in the base of a large –rock.

'You no savvay what kind of beef?'

'No, sah,' he said aggrievedly, 'I no see um. I go come for dis place an' I see dat hole. I tink sometime dere go be beef for inside, so I done put ma hand for dere. Den dis beef 'e done chop me.'

'Whah! Dis man no get fear,' I said, turning to the other hunters, 'he no go look de hole first. He done put his hand for inside and beef done chop him.'

The other hunters giggled. I turned to the wounded man again.

'Ma friend, you done put your hand for dish ole, eh? Now, sometimes you go find snake for dis kind of place, no be so? If snake done chop you what you go do?'

'I no savvay, Masa,' he said, grinning.

'I no want dead hunter man, ma friend, so you no go do dis sort of foolish thing again, you hear?'

'I hear, sah.'

'Allright. Now we go look dis beef that done chop you.'

Taking a torch from the collecting bag I crouched down by the hole and peered up it. In the torch beam a pair of small eyes glowed ruby red, and then a little, pointed, ginger-coloured face appeared round them, uttered a shrill, snarling screech, and disappeared into the gloom at the back of the hole.

'Ah!' said one of the hunters who had heard the noise, 'dis na bush dog. Dis beef 'e fierce too much, sah.'

Unfortunately, the pidgin English term 'bush dog' is used indiscriminately to describe a great variety of small mammals, few of which are even remotely related to dogs, so the hunter's remark left me none the wiser as to what sort of an animal it was. After some argument, we decided that the best way to get the beast to show itself was to light a fire outside the hole, and then blow smoke into it by fanning with a bunch of leaves. This we proceeded to do, having first hung a small net over the mouth of the hole. The first whiff of smoke had hardly drifted in amongst the rocks when the beast shot out of the hole and into the net with such force that it was torn from its moorings, and the animal rolled down the slope into the long grass, carrying the net with him. The dogs scrambled after him, barking uproariously with excitement, and we followed close on their heels, yelling threats as to what punishment they would receive if they harmed the quarry. However, the beast hardly needed our help, for he was perfectly capable of looking after himself, as we soon found out.