‘Arrrr!’ roared our driver, sticking his head out of the window, his moustache quivering impressively, ‘¿que pasa?’
One of the Indians leapt off the tractor, and loped slowly off down the road; the other pushed his big straw hat on to the back of his head and slowly approached the bank of the river.
‘Nafta no hay,’ he explained, scratching his stomach with every evidence of satisfaction.
‘Fine bloody time for them to run out of petrol,’ I said irritably to Luna.
‘Yes,’ said Luna despondently, ‘but the other Indian has gone for some. He will not be long.’
Half an hour passed. Then an hour. By now our nether regions were so frozen that we were all shifting uneasily in our seats to try and get some feeling back, making noises like a troupe of hippopotami enjoying a wallow in a particularly succulent swamp. At last, to our relief, the Indian appeared loping down the road carrying a can of petrol. He and the other Indian then had a long argument as to the best method of putting the life-giving fluid into the tractor, while our driver roared insults at them from between chattering teeth. But at last they had finished this highly complicated operation, the tractor sprang into life, the hawser tightened and we were drawn slowly but inexorably towards the bank, while the water-level in the wagon fell.
When we eventually reached dry land we all got out, removed our trousers and wrung them out, while our driver soundly berated the Indians for their attempted homicide, while they both grinned amiably at us. Then the driver, in his shirt-tails, opened the bonnet of the car and peered into the engine, his moustache twitching, muttering to himself. He had carefully wrapped in cotton waste certain vital parts of the internal organs of our vehicle before we entered the flood, and these he now unwrapped, and then proceeded to dry other parts of the engine. Eventually, he climbed in, pressing the starter, and with a wide grin of pride, heard the engine roar into life. We piled in and jolted off down the road, the Indians waving their straw hats in gay farewell.
We had travelled some five miles and were just beginning to dry out when we met our next water hazard. The road here ran along the lower slopes of the mountains, and the terrain was intersected at intervals by deep, narrow gorges through which the water from the mountains drained. Where the road crossed one of these narrow but powerful rivers one would have thought that the simplest engineering method would have been to throw a small bridge across from bank to bank. Apparently the vast numbers of these rivers made this too costly, and so another method was employed. A slightly concave apron of cement was laid across the river bed, which at least gave your wheels some purchase. In the dry season, of course, this looked merely like a continuation of the road, but when the waters from the mountains stormed down they roared over the apron, sometimes four feet deep, and then dropped into a graceful ten foot waterfall the other side to join the river lower down. A few days covered with water and the cement developed a surface like glass, owing to the algae that adhered to it, and so it was considerably more hazardous than the original river-bed would have been.
Here there was no winch to help us, and the driver nosed the station-wagon carefully into the red water, scowling fearfully behind his bristling moustache. We had got half-way across the invisible cement apron, when the engine stalled. We sat and looked at each other mutely, until suddenly the force of the water piling up against the side of the vehicle shifted it an inch or so in the direction of the waterfall on our right, and then we were all suddenly galvanized into activity. We none of us wanted to be sitting in the station-wagon if the torrent suddenly got a good grip on her and swept her over the edge and downstream among the tangle of rocks we could see. We left the vehicle as one man.
‘Push … we must all push,’ said Luna, raising his voice above the noise of the falls. He was clinging to the side of the station-wagon with both hands, for the force of the water was considerable. He was so slight in build that I expected at any moment to see him plucked away by the current and swept over the waterfall like a feather.
‘Go round the other side of the car,’ I shouted, ‘the water won’t sweep you away there.’
Luna realized the force of this argument, and made his way round the wagon in a starfish-like manner, until it stood between him and the waterfall. Then we laid our shoulders to the wagon and started to push. It was quite one of the most unrewarding tasks I have ever undertaken, for not only were we trying to push the wagon up the opposite slope of the cement apron, but we were also pushing against the current which all the time was trying to twist the wagon round at an angle. After about ten minutes of struggling we had managed to shift our vehicle approximately three feet nearer the opposite bank, and the current had moved it three feet nearer the edge of the waterfall. I began to get really worried, for at this rate I could see the wagon plunging gracefully over the waterfall in a matter of another half-hour, for the three of us alone had not the strength to push her up the slope and against the current. We had a rope in the back of the wagon and, if it was long enough, the only thing I could suggest was that we tethered the wagon to a tree on the opposite bank, and just sat there until the waters subsided. I was just about to try and put this plan into Spanish, when round the corner of the road on the opposite bank appeared a Fairy Godmother, heavily disguised as a wheezing, snorting lorry, which, in spite of its age and rust, looked powerful and phlegmatic. We greeted it with shouts of joy. The driver of the lorry took in our predicament in a glance, and slowing down, drove the vast bulk of his vehicle slowly into the red torrent until he was within a few feet of us. Hastily we got out our rope and shackled the two vehicles together; then the lorry went into reverse and gently drew our vehicle out of the flood and on to dry land. We thanked the lorry driver, gave him a cigarette, and watched enviously as he drove his mighty steed through the torrent as if it had not been there. Then we turned our attention to the laborious and messy process of drying out our engine.
Eventually we reached Oran at two o’clock in the afternoon, having had to navigate three more water hazards, none of which, fortunately, was as bad as the last two. Nevertheless, we arrived at Luna’s house all looking as though we had spent our entire day in the river, which was not so far from the truth. Luna’s charming family greeted us with delight, whipped our clothes away to be dried, cooked us an enormous meal, and sat us down to eat it in an indoor courtyard, overflowing with flowers, where the frail sunlight was just starting to make its heat felt. While we ate and drank good, warming red wine, Luna sent an apparently endless stream of his smaller relatives on mysterious missions to different parts of the town, and they kept reappearing to whisper reports to him, whereupon he would nod his head portentously and smile, or else scowl ferociously, according to the news that was being vouchsafed to him. Everyone had an air of suppressed excitement, and stiffened expectantly if Luna so much as coughed or looked in their direction. I began to feel as though I was having lunch with the Duke of Wellington on the eve of Waterloo. At last he leant forward, poured us both out a last glass of wine, and then grinned at me, his big black eyes sparkling with suppressed excitement.
‘Gerry,’ he said in Spanish, ‘I have found you some bichos.’
‘Already?’ I asked. ‘But how?’
He waved a hand at his small army of relatives, standing in a grinning line.
‘I have sent my family to make inquiries, and they have discovered a number of people who have bichos. Now it only remains for us to go and buy them if they are the bichos you want.’
‘Wonderful,’ I said enthusiastically, finishing my wine at a gulp, ‘let’s go, shall we?’
So, in ten minutes’ time, Luna and I set off to quarter Oran like huntsmen, preceded by our pack of Luna’s young and excited relatives. The town was not really so large, but rather straggling, built on the typical Argentine chessboard pattern. Everywhere we went, as Charles had predicted, Luna was greeted with cries of joy, and we had to refuse many invitations of the more bibulous variety. But Luna, with a reluctant gleam in his
eye, sternly turned his back on such frivolity, and we continued on our way. Eventually, one of the younger members of our retinue ran on ahead and beat a loud tattoo on a most impressive-looking door of a large house. By the time we had reached it the door had been opened by an ancient woman dressed in black, which made her look like a somewhat dilapidated cockroach. Luna paused in front of her and gave her a grave good evening, to which she bowed slightly.
‘I know that you have in your house a parrot,’ said Luna with the air of a policeman daring a criminal to deny the existence of a corpse which he knows to be concealed beneath the sofa.
‘That is so,’ said the woman, mildly surprised.
‘This English señor is collecting for his jardin zoologico in England,’ Luna went on, ‘and it is possible that he may wish to purchase this bird of yours.’
The woman surveyed me from dark, dry eyes, without curiosity.
‘You are welcome to him,’ she said at last, ‘for he is a dirty bird and he does not talk. My son brought him to me, but if I can sell him I will be only too glad. Come in, señores, and see him.’
She shuffled ahead of us and led us into the inevitable courtyard of potted plants, forming the well of the house. When I saw the bird it was all I could do to stifle a yelp of delight, for the creature was a yellow-naped macaw, a rare member of the parrot family. It was sitting on the remains of a wooden perch which it had obviously, over the past week, demolished slowly and systematically until scarcely anything remained. It glanced up at us as we gathered round it, a fine sliver of wood in its beak, uttered a short gurking noise, and returned to its work of demolition. Luna gave me a quick glance from his brilliant eyes, and I nodded my head vigorously. He took a deep breath, surveyed the macaw with loathing, and then turned to the woman.
‘One of the commoner ones, I see,’ he said carelessly, ‘but even so the señor is interested in buying it. You realize, of course, that for such a common, destructive bird, and one, moreover, that does not talk, we cannot afford to be generous. The señor would not dream of considering paying anything more than, say, twenty-five pesos for such a creature.’
Then he folded his arms and looked at the woman, waiting for her outburst of indignation at the mere mention of such a low price.
‘All right,’ said the woman, ‘you can have him.’
While Luna regarded her open-mouthed she picked up the macaw, plonked him unceremoniously on my shoulder, and held out her wrinkled palm for the notes which I was hastily counting out from my wallet before she changed her mind. We were back in the street again, with the macaw making surprised and pleased gurking noises in my ear, before Luna recovered the power of speech. Then he shook his head despondently.
‘What’s the matter, Luna?’ I asked. ‘It’s a wonderful bird, and to get it so cheap is incredible.’
‘For your sake,’ said Luna gloomily, ‘I am glad. But it makes me fear for the future of Argentina when I meet someone who will not bargain, but accepts the first price offered. Where would we all be if everyone did that?’
‘Life would probably be a lot cheaper,’ I pointed out, but he refused to be comforted, and continued to grumble over the woman’s behaviour for the rest of our tour of the town, though a brisk half-hour exchange with a man who drove a hard bargain over another parrot shortly restored his faith in humanity.
We continued on our way through the town until it grew dark, by which time all of us were carrying what amounted to a small zoo. There were five parrots (including, to my delight, another yellow-naped macaw), two pigmy Brazilian rabbits, with ginger paws and white spectacles of fur round their eyes, and an orange-rumped agouti, a large rodent with dark eyes, slender legs and the disposition of a racehorse suffering from an acute nervous breakdown. We carried this assortment of wild-life back to Luna’s house and let them all loose in the patio, while Luna organized his band of relatives once more and sent them scurrying in all directions to fetch empty boxes, wire-netting, saws, hammers, nails and other accoutrements of the carpenter’s trade. Then, for the next two hours we were fully occupied building suitable habitations for my acquisitions. At length, when the last of the creatures had been placed in its cage, Luna and I sat at the table nearby and ate and drank heartily, while from the pile of wooden boxes came the faint scufflings and squawks which are such music to the animal collector’s ears. Presently, a large tumbler of good wine by my side, I sat down in front of the cages to examine my charges by lamplight, while Luna called for his guitar and sang the soft, mournful folk-songs of Argentina, occasionally, where the music required it, using the deep wooden belly of his guitar as a drum.
The parrots we had acquired were all blue-fronted Amazons, all rather scruffy because of bad feeding, but all reasonably tame and able to mutter the inevitable ‘Lorito’ which is the Argentine equivalent of ‘Polly’. As they were all much the same size and age we had caged them together, and now in the lamplight they sat in a row, like a highly coloured jury, regarding me with the ancient, reptilian and falsely-wise expressions that parrots are such masters at adopting. I was pleased with them in spite of their tattered appearance, for I knew that a few weeks of good feeding would make a world of difference, and that, at their next moult, their feathers would glow with lemon-yellow, blue and a multitude of greens that would make a collection of emeralds look dowdy in comparison. Gently I lowered a piece of sacking over the front of their cage and heard them all fluff and rearrange their feathers (a sound like someone riffling through a pack of cards) preparatory to sleep. Next I turned my attention to the yellow-naped macaws, and gloated over them for some time. We had, experimentally, caged them together, and the way they had immediately taken to each other and started to bill and coo inclined me to think that they were a true pair. They sat on the perch now and regarded me solemnly, occasionally turning their heads on one side as if to see whether I looked any more attractive that way. Basically their colouring was a deep, rush green, only relieved on the neck where they had a broad half-moon-shaped patch of feathers which were bright canary-yellow. For macaws – which are as a rule the largest of the parrots – they were diminutive, being slightly smaller and more slender than the common Amazon parrots. They gurked gently to me and to each other, their pale eyelids drooping sleepily over their bright eyes, so I covered them up with sacking and left them.
Next to the macaws the Brazilian rabbits were the creatures I was most delighted to have obtained, for they were animals I had long wanted to meet. The two we had got were only babies, and I lifted them out of their cage and they sat, one in each hand, comfortably filling my palms with the soft, fat warmth of their bodies, their noses wiffling with all the strange scents of food and flowers with which the patio was filled. At first glance you would have taken them for the young of the common European rabbit, but closer inspection soon showed the differences. To begin with their ears were very short for their size, and very neat and slender. The basic colouring on the back was a dark rich brown, flecked and patterned with rusty-coloured patches and blobs. Their feet and part of the leg were a bright, rich ginger, and, as I said before, they had a fine circle of white hair round each eye. Their nose and lips, I now noticed, were faintly outlined in white as well. When they were fully adult, I knew, they would still be among the dwarfs of their breed, being only half the size of the European wild rabbit. As far as I knew, no zoo in the world possessed these interesting little creatures, and I was delighted to have got them, though I had faint qualms about being successful in taking them back to Europe, for the rabbit and hare family do not, on the whole, take kindly to captivity, and are reputedly difficult. However, these were very young, and I had hopes that they would settle down satisfactorily.
When I lifted the sacking off the front of the agouti’s cage she leapt straight up into the air, and landed with a crash in her straw bed, quivering in every limb, with the expression of an elderly virgin who, after years of looking under the bed, has at last found a man there. However, with the aid of a piece of apple I
managed to soothe her into a fairly reasonable state, and she actually allowed me to stroke her. Agoutis are, of course, rodents, members of that enormous and interesting family that includes creatures like the harvest mouse, which would hardly fill the bowl of a teaspoon, to capybaras that are the size of a large dog and in between these two extremes a great variety of squirrels, dormice, rats, porcupines and other unlikely beasts. Agoutis are not, let us admit at once, the most prepossessing of their family. To be perfectly frank, they look like a cross between one of the smaller forerunners of the horse, and a rather lugubrious rabbit. Their basic colouring is a rich, shining mahogany, fading to reddish-ginger on their rumps. Their legs are chocolate brown, very long and slender and racehorse-like, ending in a bunch of frail, artistic toes which give them the ancient-horse look. Their hind legs are powerful in order to support a backside that is out of all proportion to the forequarters, so that the creature looks, if I might put it like this, as though it had a hump-behind. The head is rabbit-like, but again slightly elongated so that there is still a faint suggestion of horse about it. They have large, fine eyes, neat rounded ears and a mass of black whiskers which are in a constant state of agitation about everything. Combine all this with the beast’s temperament, its constantly neurotic state, its wild leaps into the air at the slightest sound followed by a period of acute ague, and you begin to wonder how the species survives at all. I should imagine that a jaguar would only have to growl once and every agouti within a hundred yards’ radius would die of heart-failure immediately. Musing on this I lowered the sacking over the front of my agouti’s cage, and she immediately leapt once more into the air and came down shaking in every limb. However, within a few minutes she had recovered from this terrible experience sufficiently to make an attack on the apple I left in the cage for her. Luna had now, by the application of song and wine, worked himself into a pleasant state where he sat at the table, humming softly like a drowsy bee. We had a final glass of wine as a nightcap, and then yawning prodigiously, stumbled off to bed.