Page 14 of The Bafut Beagles


  ‘How you done catch dis beef?’ I asked the hunter. He gave a grin and wiggled his toes with embarrassment.

  ‘You no de hear?’ asked the Fon, ‘you no get mouth? Speak now!’

  ‘Masa,’ began the man, scratching his stomach, ‘de Fon done tell me Masa want dis kind of beef too much, an’ so three days I done go for bush, I look um. I done walka, walka, I done tire too much, but I never see dis beef. Yesterday, for evening time, dis bushcat ’e done come softly for my farm, an’ ’e done chop three chicken. Dis morning I see ’e foot for de mud, an’ I done follow for bush. Far too much I done follow um, Masa, an’ den, for some big hill, I done see um.’

  The Fon shifted in his chair and fixed the man with a glittering eye.

  ‘You speak true?’ he asked sternly.

  ‘Yes, Masa,’ protested the hunter, ‘I speak true.’

  ‘Good,’ said the Fon.

  ‘I done see dis bushcat,’ the man went on; ‘’e done walka for dis big hill. Den ’e done go for some place dere be rock too much. ’E done go for hole in de ground. I look dis hole, but man no fit pass, ’e tight too much. I done go back for my house an’ I done bring fine dog and catchnet, den I go back for dis place. I done put catchnet for de hole, an’ den I done make small fire an’ put smoke for de hole.’

  He paused and hopped on one leg, clicking his fingers.

  ‘Wah! Dat beef fierce too much! When ’e done smell de smoke ’e de hollar an’ ’e de hollar, time no dere. My dog dey de fear an’ dey all done run. I de fear bushcat go catch me an’ I done run also. Small time I hear de beef ’e hollar an’ hollar, an’ so I done go softly softly for look um. Wah! Masa, dat beef ’e run run for inside catchnet, an’ de catchnet done hold um fine. When I see um for catchnet I no get fear again, an’ so I done go an’ tie ’e foot with rope, an’ I done bring um one time for Masa.’

  The man ended his story and stood watching us anxiously, twisting his short spear in both hands.

  ‘My friend,’ I told him, ‘I tink you be fine hunter man, an’ I go pay you good money for dis beef.’

  ‘Na so, na so,’ agreed the Fon, waving a lordly hand, ‘dis man done make fine hunting for you.’

  I paid him a handsome sum of money, and made him a present of several packets of cigarettes, and he went off grinning and ejaculating, ‘Tank you, Masa, tank you,’ all the way down the steps and along the road until he was out of earshot. Then I turned to the Fon, who was sitting back watching me with a smug expression on his face.

  ‘My friend, I tank you too much for dis ting you done do,’ I said.

  The Fon waved his hands deprecatingly.

  ‘No, no, my friend, na small ting dis. It no be good ting if you go leave Bafut and you never get all de beef you want. I sorry too much you do go leave. But, when you look dis fine beef you go tink of Bafut, no be so?’

  ‘Na true,’ I said, ‘and now, my friend, you go drink with me?’

  ‘Foine, foine,’ said the Fon.

  As if to compensate for the dreariness of the early part of the day, the sunset was one of the finest I have ever seen. The sun sank down behind a grid of pale, elongated clouds, and as it sank, the clouds turned from white to pearly pink, and then flushed to crimson edged with gold. The sky itself was washed with the palest of blues and greens, smudged here and there with a touch of gold, with pale, trembling stars gaining strength as the world darkened. Presently the moon came up, blood-red at first, changing to yellow and then silver as she rose, turning the world a frosty silver, with shadows as black as charcoal.

  The Fon and I sat drinking in the misty moonlight until it was late. Then he turned to me, pointing towards his villa.

  ‘I tink sometime you like to dance,’ he said, ‘so I done tell um to make musica. You like we go dance before you leave, eh?’

  ‘Yes, I like to dance,’ I said.

  The Fon lurched to his feet, and, leaning perilously over the veranda rail, he shouted an order to someone waiting below. In a short time a cluster of lights moved across the great courtyard, and the Fon’s all-female band assembled in the road below and started to play. Soon they were joined by numerous others, including most of the council members. The Fon listened to the music for a bit, waving his hands and smiling, and then he got up and held out his hand to me.

  ‘Come!’ he said, ‘we go dance, eh?’

  ‘Foine, foine!’ I mimicked him, and he crowed with glee.

  We made our way across the moon-misty veranda to the head of the steps; the Fon draped a long arm over my shoulders, partly out of affection and partly for support, and we started to descend. Half-way down, my companion stopped to execute a short dance to the music. His foot got tangled up in his impressive robes, and, but for his firm grip round my neck he would have rolled down the steps into the road. As it was, we struggled there for a moment, swaying violently, as we tried to regain our balance; the crowd of wives, offspring, and councillors gave a great gasp of horror and consternation at the sight of their lord in such peril, and the band stopped playing.

  ‘Musica, musica!’ roared the Fon, as we reeled together on the steps; ‘why you done stop, eh?’

  The band started up again, we regained our equilibrium and walked down the rest of the way without mishap. The Fon was in fine fettle, and he insisted on holding my hand and dancing across the courtyard, splashing through the puddles, while the band trotted behind, playing a trifle short-windedly. When we reached the dancing-hut he sat down on his throne for a rest, while his court took the floor. Presently, when there was a slight lull in the dancing, I asked the Fon if he would call the band over, so that I could examine the instruments more closely. They trooped over and stood in front of the dais on which we sat, while I tried each instrument in turn and was shown the correct way of playing it. To everyone’s surprise, including my own, I succeeded in playing the first few bars of ‘The Campbells are Coming’ on a bamboo flute. The Fon was so delighted with this that he made me repeat it several times while he accompanied me on a big drum, and one of the council members on the strange foghorn-like instrument. The effect was not altogether musical, but we rendered it with great verve and feeling. Then we had to repeat it all over again, so that the Fon could hear how it sounded with a full band accompaniment. Actually, it sounded rather good, as most of my flat notes were drowned by the drums.

  When we had exhausted the musical possibilities of the tune, the Fon sent for another bottle, and we settled down to watch the dancers. The inactivity soon told on my companion, and after an hour or so he started to shift on his throne and to scowl at the band. He filled up our glasses, and then leant back and glared at the dancers.

  ‘Dis dance no be good,’ he confided at last.

  ‘Na fine,’ I said; ‘why you no like?’

  ‘’E slow too much,’ he pointed out, and then he leant over and smiled at me disarmingly, ‘You like we go dance your special dance?’

  ‘Special dance?’ I queried, slightly fuddled; ‘what dance?’

  ‘One, two, three, keek; one, two, three, keek,’ yodelled the Fon.

  ‘Ah, dat dance you de talk. Yes, we go dance um if you like.’

  ‘I like too much,’ said the Fon firmly.

  He led the way on to the dance-floor, and clutched my waist in a firm grip, while everyone else, all chattering and grinning with delight, joined on behind. In order to add a little variety to the affair I borrowed a flute, and piped noisily and inaccurately on it as I led them on a wild dance round the dance-hall and out among the huts of the Fon’s wives. The night was warm, and half an hour of this exercise made me stream with sweat and gasp for breath. We stopped for a rest and some liquid refreshment. It was obvious, however, that my Conga had got into the Fon’s blood. He sat on his throne, his eyes gleaming, feet tapping, humming reminiscently to himself, and obviously waiting with ill-concealed impatience until I had recovered my breath before suggesting that we repeat the whole performance. I decided that I would have to head him off in some way, for I fou
nd the Conga too enervating for such a close night, and I had barked my shin quite painfully on a door-post during our last round. I cast around in my mind for another dance I could teach him which would be less strenuous to perform, and yet whose tune could be easily mastered by the band. I made my choice, and then called once more for a flute, and practised on it for a few minutes. Then I turned to the Fon, who had been watching me with great interest.

  ‘If you go tell de band ’e go learn dis special music I go teach you other European dance,’ I said.

  ‘Ah! Foine, foine,’ he said, his eyes gleaming, and he turned and roared the band to silence, and then marshalled them round the dais while I played the tune to them. In a surprisingly short time they had picked it up, and were even adding little variations of their own. The Fon stamped his feet delightedly.

  ‘Na fine music dis,’ he said; ‘now you go show me dis dance, eh?’

  I looked round and singled out a young damsel, who I had noticed, seemed exceptionally bright, and, clasping her as closely as propriety would permit (for her clothing was nonexistent), I set off across the dance-floor in a dashing polka. My partner after only a momentary hesitation picked up the step perfectly, and we bobbed and hopped round in great style. To show his appreciation of this new dance, the Fon started to clap, and immediately the rest of the court followed suit; it started off as normal, ragged applause; but, being Africans, our audience kept clapping and worked it into the rhythm of the dance. The girl and I circled round the large floor five times, and then we were forced to stop for a rest. When I reached the dais, the Fon held out a brimming glass of whisky for me and clapped me on the back as I sat down.

  ‘Na foine dance!’ he said.

  I nodded and gulped down my drink. As soon as I had put my glass down, the Fon seized me by the hand and pulled me on to the floor again.

  ‘Come,’ he said persuasively, ‘you go show me dis dance.’

  Clasped in each other’s arms, we polkaed round the room, but it was not a great success, chiefly because my partner’s robes became entangled with my feet and jerked us both to a halt. We would then have to stand patiently while a crowd of council members unwound us, after which away we would go again: one, two, three, hop, only to end up in the opposite corner entwined together like a couple of maypoles.

  Eventually I glanced at my watch and discovered to my dismay that it was three o’clock. Reluctantly I had to take my leave of the Fon and retire to bed. He and the court followed me out into the great courtyard, and there I left them. As I climbed up the steps to the villa I looked back at them. In among the twinkling hurricane lanterns they were all dancing the polka. In the centre of them the Fon was jigging and hopping by himself, waving one long arm and shouting ‘Good night, my friend, good night!’ I waved back, and then went and crawled thankfully into my bed.

  By eight-thirty the next morning the lorry had arrived and the collection had been stacked on to it. An incredible number of Bafutians had come to say good-bye and to see me off; they had been arriving since early that morning, and now lined the roadside, chattering together, waiting for me to depart. The last load was hoisted on to the lorry, and the sound of drums, flutes, and rattles heralded the arrival of the Fon to take his leave of me. He was dressed as I had seen him on the day of my arrival, in a plain white robe and a wine-red skull-cap. He was accompanied by his retinue of highly-coloured councillors. He strode up and embraced me, and then, holding me by the hand, addressed the assembled Bafutians in a few rapid sentences. When he stopped, the crowd broke into loud ‘arrr’s’ and started to clap rhythmically. The Fon turned to me and raised his voice.

  ‘My people ’e sorry too much you go leave Bafut. All dis people dey go remember you, and you no go forget Bafut, eh?’

  ‘I never go forget Bafut,’ I said truthfully, making myself heard with difficulty above the loud and steady clapping of those hundreds of black hands.

  ‘Good,’ he said with satisfaction; then he clasped my hand firmly in his and wrung it. ‘My friend always I go get you for my eye. I no go forget dis happy time we done get. By God power you go reach your own country safe. Walka good, my friend, walka good.’

  As the lorry started off down the road the clapping got faster and faster, until it sounded like rain on a tin roof. We jolted our way slowly along until we reached the corner; looking back I saw the road lined with naked black humanity, their hands fluttering as they clapped, and at the end of this avenue of moving hands and flashing teeth stood a tall figure in dazzling white. It raised a long arm, and a huge hand waved a last farewell as the lorry rounded the corner and started up the red earth road that wound over the golden, glittering hills.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Zoo under Canvas

  One of the most frustrating things for the collector is that he can rarely get to know any of his animals until towards the end of a trip. During the first four months or so they are just specimens to him, for he has not the time to observe them closely enough for them to assume characters of their own. He sees that they are adequately housed, feeds and cleans them; but beyond that he cannot go, for all his spare time is spent in trying to add to his menagerie. Towards the end of a trip, however, his collection has grown to such proportions that he cannot wander far afield, for he has too much to do. Then is the time when he has to rely entirely on the native hunters to bring in new specimens, and he, being confined to camp all day, has the opportunity of getting to know the creatures he has already assembled. Our collection had reached such a point when I returned from Bafut. Not only had we the grassland animals, but during my stay in the mountains Smith had been steadily increasing the collection with the local forest fauna. Under the great canvas roof of our marquee we had a large and varied enough collection of creatures to start a small zoo.

  So, on my return to our hot and humid base camp on the banks of the Cross River, I began to appreciate some of my grassland captures for the first time. For example, take the case of the hyrax. Until I got them down to base camp I had considered them to be rather dull creatures, whose only claim to fame was their relatives. At first glance one would be pardoned for mistaking a hyrax for an ordinary member of the great group of rodents, and as you watched them nibbling away at leaves or gnawing at some juicy bark, you would probably hazard a guess that they were related to the rabbits. In this you would be quite wrong, for a hyrax is an ungulate, an order which includes cattle, deer, swine, and horses; and the nearest relative to the hyrax is not the rabbit but the elephant, of all unlikely things. In the bone formation of the feet, and in other anatomical details, the hyrax is classified as coming closer to the elephant and the rhino than anything else. This is the sort of information that makes people wonder whether zoologists are quite sane, for a hyrax resembles an elephant about as closely as an elephant does a humming-bird. However, the relationship is clearer if one goes into the more complicated details of anatomy and dentition. This, frankly, was all the information I had about the hyrax.

  When I reached base camp, the old female hyrax, which had savaged the Beagle’s foot, and her two fat babies were transferred from the small cage they had been confined in to a much bigger affair that gave them plenty of space to move about in and had a private bedroom to which to retire if they felt in any way anti-social. In this cage I noticed several things about them which I had not observed before. To begin with, they had what are called ‘lavatory habits’; that is to say, they always deposited their dirt in one spot in the cage. Until then I had not realized what a godsend an animal with these habits could be to a hard-working collector. As soon as I had grasped the meaning of the neat little pile of dung I found in the corner of the cage each morning, I set about making the cleaning of the hyrax cage a much simpler operation. I simply provided them with a round, shallow tin as a latrine. To my annoyance, the next morning I found that they had spurned my offer; they had simply pushed the tin out of the way and deposited their dirt in the usual place in the normal fashion. So that night I put the tin in ag
ain, but this time I placed a few of their droppings in the bottom. The following day, to my delight, the tin was piled high with dirt, and the floor of the cage was spotless. After that the cleaning of the cage took approximately five minutes: you simply emptied the tin, washed and replaced it in the corner. It became a real pleasure to clean out the hyrax.

  As a contrast in habits there were the Pouched Rats: these rodents, each as large as a small kitten, lived in the cage next door to the hyrax family. These belonged to that irritating group of beasts that won’t – or can’t – evacuate their bowels unless it is done into water, and preferably running water. In the wild state they would probably use a stream for this purpose, and the current would carry the dirt away to fertilize some plant farther downstream. In a cage, however, I could not provide the Pouched Rats with a stream, so they used the next best thing, which was their water-pot. There is nothing quite so frustrating as putting a nice clean water-pot, brimming with clear liquid, into a cage, and, on looking at it five minutes later, finding that it resembles a pot full of liquid manure. It was very worrying, for in the heat the animals needed a on-stant supply of fresh drinking-water, and yet here were the rats dirtying their water before drinking it. After many futile attempts to get them to abandon this habit, I used to supply them with a large pot of water as a lavatory, and plenty of juicy fruit to eat, in the hope that this would quench their thirst.

  But to return to the hyrax: in Bafut I had decided that they were dull, unfriendly animals who spent their whole lives sitting on their haunches chewing leaves with a glazed look in their eyes. At base camp I discovered that I was quite mistaken, for a hyrax can be as lively as a lamb when it puts its mind to it. In the evening, when their cage was flooded with sunlight, the old female would lie there looking as imposing as a Trafalgar Square lion, munching methodically at a bunch of tender spinach, or a cluster of cassava leaves, while her babies played with each other. These were wild and exhilarating romps they used to have: they would chase one another round and round the cage, sometimes astonishing me by running straight up the smooth wooden back of the cage until they reached the roof before dropping off on to the floor. When they tired of these Wall-of-Death stunts they would use their mother’s portly and recumbent body as a castle. One would climb up on to her back, while the other would attack and try to knock him off. Occasionally they would both be on their mother’s back together, locked in mortal combat, while their parent lay there unmoved, chewing steadily, a trance-like look on her face. These games were delightful to watch, but there was one annoying thing about them, and this was that the babies would sometimes carry on far into the night, especially if there was a moon. It is extremely difficult to get to sleep when a pair of baby hyrax are dashing about their cage, producing a noise like a couple of stallions fighting in a loose-box. Sitting up in bed and shouting ‘SHUT UP’ in fearsome tones had the effect of stopping them for about half an hour; if you had not drifted into sleep by then, you would be brought back to life once again by the thumping of wood, twanging of wire, and the melodious crash of food-pots being kicked over. The hyrax were certainly anything but dull.