Gerald Durrell - THREE SINGLES TO ADVENTURE

I was awakened by my horse ambling to a standstill.

I found that Francis had also awakened and now sat on his horse surveying the area like a battered Napoleon. In front of us the land lay flat as a chess-board; on our left the ground rose gently, the slope covered with great clumps of grass and stunted bushes. I rode up alongside our guide and looked at him inquiringly. He waved a brown hand and gestured at the country. I presumed that we had arrived at anteater territory.

"What is it?" inquired Bob.

"I think this is where he saw the anteater."

Francis, we had been assured, could speak English, and now was the great moment when he was to give us the details of the chase. Looking me squarely in the eye he proceeded to utter a series of sounds which, for sheer in comprehensibility I have rarely heard equalled. He repeated it twice while I listened carefully, but still I could not make out a single word that seemed at all familiar. I turned to Bob, who had been easing himself painfully up and down in the saddle and taking no part in this exchange.

"Didn't you say you could speak an Indian dialect?"

"Well, yes. But those were Indians in Paraguay , and I don't think it's anything like Munchi."

"Can you remember any?"

"Yes, I think so. Just a smattering."

"Well have a shot at trying to understand what Francis is saying."

"Isn't he talking English?" asked Bob in surprise.

"For all I can make of it he might be talking Patagonian. Go on, Francis, say it again."

Francis, with a long-suffering air, repeated his little speech. Bob listened carefully with a frown on his face.

"No," he said at last, "I can't make anything of it. It's certainly not English."

We looked at Francis, and he looked pityingly back at us.

Soon, however, an idea occurred to him, and with many gestures and shrill cries he at last managed to explain what he was getting at. This was the place where he had seen the anteater. Somewhere in this area it was probably asleep here he folded his hands against his cheek, closed his eyes and uttered loud snores. We were to spread out into a line and beat through the undergrowth, making as much noise as possible.

So we spread out at thirty-yard intervals and urged our steeds through the long grass with loud cries and yodel lings feeling somewhat stupid as we did so. Francis, away on my right, was giving a very fair imitation of a pack of hounds in full cry while on my left I could hear Bob singing snatches of Loch-Lomond, interspersed with shrill screeches of "shoo!" – a combination guaranteed to flush any anteater. Thus we progressed for about half a mile, until my throat was sore with shouting, and I was beginning to wonder if there really had been an anteater there, or if, indeed, there were any anteaters in Guiana at all. My cries lost their first rich quality and became more like the depressed cawing of a lone crow.

Suddenly Francis uttered a piercing and triumphant cry, and I could see a dark shape bobbing through the long grass in front of his horse. I turned my steed and rode towards it as fast as I could, yelling to Bob as I did so. My horse staggered wildly over the tussocks of grass and the deep heat cracks in the soil as I urged him on. The dark shape burst from the cover of the long grass and started off across a comparatively grass less plain at a rolling gallop, and I saw that it was indeed an anteater, and a bigger one than any I had seen in captivity. He travelled across the plain at remarkable speed, his great icicle shaped head swinging from side to side, and his shaggy tail streaming out behind him like a pennant. Francis was in hot pursuit, uncoiling his lasso as he rode and cheering his horse on with wild, staccato cries. I had by now extricated my horse from the long grass, and I headed him towards the anteater, but no sooner did he catch sight of our quarry than he decided he did not like it, and he turned and made off in the opposite direction with speed and determination. It took me all my time to turn him, for his mouth was like a bucket, but eventually I managed to gain a certain control over him.

Even so, we approached the fray in a circular and crab-like fashion. I was just in time to see Francis gallop alongside the anteater, and, whirling his lasso, drop it over the beast's head. It was a bad throw, for the noose slipped right over the anteater's head, and he simply cantered straight through it, swerved wildly and headed back towards the long grass. Francis was forced to pause, haul in his rope and recoil it, and meanwhile the quarry was heading at full speed for thick undergrowth, in which it would be impossible for Francis to lasso him.

Urging my reluctant mount forward I succeeded in heading the anteater off, and steering him back on to the plain, and by keeping my horse at a brisk canter I found I could stay alongside the animal.

The anteater galloped on over the plain, hissing and snorting down his long nose, his stunted little legs thumping on the sun-baked earth. Francis caught us up again, spun his rope round two or three times, and dropped it neatly over the animal's forequarters, pulling the noose tight as it reached its waist. He was off his horse in a second, and, hanging grimly to the rope, he was dragged across the grass by the enraged anteater. Asking Bob to hold the horses, I joined Francis on the end of the rope. The anteater had incredible strength in his thick bow legs and shaggy body, and it was all the two of us could do to bring him to a standstill. Francis, the sweat pouring down his face, peered round; then he uttered a grunt and pointed behind me. Looking round I saw a small tree growing about a hundred yards away, the only one for miles.

Gasping and panting, we managed to chivvy the anteater to wards it. When we at length arrived at the tree we succeeded in getting another loop of rope round the angry animal's body, and then we proceeded to tie the loose end to the trunk of the tree. Just as we were tying the last knot Francis looked up into the branches and gave a warning yelp.

Looking up I saw, about two feet above my head, a wasp's nest about the size of a football, with the entire colony clinging to the outside and looking extremely irritated, to say the least. The anteater's struggles were making the small tree sway as though struck by a hurricane, and the movement was not appreciated by the wasps. Francis and I backed away, silently and hurriedly.

At our retreat the anteater decided to have a short rest before getting down to the stern work of removing the ropes.

The tree stopped swaying, and the wasps settled down again.

We made our way back to where Bob was holding the horses and unpacked the various items we had brought with us to capture the anteaters: two large sacks, a ball of thick twine, and some lengths of stout cord. Armed with these and a murderous-looking jack-knife belonging to Francis, we again approached the tree. We were just in time to see the anteater shake himself free of the last loop of rope and waddle off across the savannah. I was only too pleased to leave Francis to disentangle his lasso from the wasp-infested tree, while I pursued the quarry on foot, rapidly tying a slip-knot in a piece of cord as I ran. I dashed up alongside the creature and flung my make-shift lasso at his head. I missed. I tried again with the same result. This went on for some time, until he became a trifle tired of my attentions. He suddenly skidded to a standstill, turned, and rose up on his hind legs facing me. I also halted, and examined him warily, particularly the great six-inch claws with which his front feet were armed. He snuffled at me, quivering his long nose, his tiny boot-button eyes daring me to come a step nearer. I walked round him in a circumspect manner, and he revolved also, keeping his claws well to the fore. I made a rather half-hearted attempt to throw the noose over his head, but he greeted this with such a violent waving of his claws, and such enraged snuffling hisses, that I desisted and waited for Francis to bring his lasso. I made a mental note that seeing an animal behind bars in a well regulated zoo is quite a different matter from trying to catch one armed with a short length of cord. In the distance I could see Francis still trying to disentangle his lasso from the tree without bringing the wasps down about his ears.