The Bafut Beagles

  When we finally left the base camp and travelled down to the coast to catch the ship, the journey was a nightmare. It was incredibly hot, and the Hairy Frogs’ box dried up very rapidly. I tried keeping it in a tin full of water, but the roads were so bad that most of the water sloshed out inside the first half mile. The only alternative to this was to stop the lorry at a stream every half-hour or so and give the box a thorough soaking. Yet in spite of this one of the males succumbed, so that only three Hairy Frogs arrived on board ship. The cool sea-breeze soon revived them, and they seemed fit enough, though very thin, owing to their self-imposed fast. The fast continued until they reached England, and for some time after they were installed in the Reptile House at London Zoo. This Curator, as I had done, tried to tempt them with all sorts of delicious titbits, but they still refused to eat. Then one day, more or less as a last resort, he put some pink newly born white mice into the cage with them, and to his surprise the frogs fell on them and devoured the lot as though baby mice were their favourite food. From then onwards they lived entirely on this mammalian diet, refusing all the usual froggy foods like locusts and mealworms. It seems highly improbable that they live exclusively on baby mice in the wild state, so it must be that the mice resembled the food that they were used to eating, though what that might be remains shrouded in mystery.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Snakes and Shillings

  The Fon’s speech at the grass-gathering ceremony produced the most astonishing and immediate results. The next afternoon I was endeavouring to dissipate the effects of the Fon’s party, and the subsequent frog hunt, by lying down for a couple of hours and catching up on some sleep. When I awoke, I decided that some tea would help to restore me to a more amiable frame of mind, so I staggered off the bed and made my way to the door, intending to shout my instructions down to the kitchen from the veranda. I opened the door and then stopped dead, wondering if I was dreaming, for the whole veranda was literally covered with a weird assortment of sacks, palm-leaf baskets, and calabashes, all of which shook and quivered gently, while leaning up against the wall were four or five long bamboos to the ends of which were tied writhing and infuriated snakes. The veranda looked more like a native market than anything else. At the top of the steps squatted Jacob, scowling at me disapprovingly.

  ‘Masa wake up?’ he said mournfully, ‘why Masa wake up?’

  ‘What’s all this?’ I asked, waving my hand at the collection of bags and baskets.

  ‘Beef,’ said Jacob succinctly.

  I examined the snakes’ bonds to make sure they were secure.

  ‘Which man done bring dis beef?’ I asked, feeling rather stunned by the profusion of arrivals.

  ‘Dis men done bring um,’ said Jacob laconically, gesturing down the steps behind him. I stepped over to where he sat and saw that the seventy-five steps up to the villa, and a good deal of the road beyond, was jammed with a great variety of Bafutians of all ages and both sexes. There must have been about a hundred and fifty of them, and they gazed up at me, unmoving and strangely quiet. As a rule a small group of four or five Africans can make more noise than any other race on earth, yet this great crowd might have been composed of deaf mutes for all the sound it was making. The silence was uncanny.

  ‘What’s the matter with them?’ I asked Jacob.

  ‘Sah?’

  ‘Why dey no make noise, eh?’

  ‘Ah!’ said Jacob, light dawning, ‘I done tell um Masa ’e sleep.’

  This was the first of many examples I was to have of the courtesy and good manners of the Bafut people. For nearly two hours, I discovered, they had sat there in the hot sun, curbing their natural exuberance so that my slumbers might not be disturbed.

  ‘Why you no wake me before?’ I said to Jacob; ‘you no savvay na bad ting for dis beef to wait, eh?’

  ‘Yes, sah. Sorry, sah.’

  ‘All right, let’s get on with it and see what they’ve brought.’

  I picked up the first basket and peered into it: it contained five mice with pale ginger fur, white tummies, and long tails. I handed the basket to Jacob, who carried it to the top of the steps and held it aloft.

  ‘Who done bring dis beef?’ he shouted.

  ‘I done bring um,’ called an old woman shrilly. She fought her way up on to the veranda, bargained with me breathlessly for five minutes, and then fought her way down the steps again, clutching her money.

  The next basket contained two delightful little owls. They were speckled grey and black, and the area round the eyes was pure white with a black rim, so that they looked as though they were wearing large horn-rimmed glasses. They clicked their beaks at me, and lowered their long eyelashes over their fierce golden eyes when they saw me, and as I tried to pick them up they rolled over on to their backs, presenting their large talons, and uttering loud screams. They were quite young, and in places were still clad in the cottonwool-like down of infancy, so that they looked as if they had both been caught in a snowstorm. I can never resist owls at the best of times, but these two babies were quite adorable. They were White-faced Scops Owls, and something quite new to my collection, so I had an excellent reason for buying them.

  The next item was a squirrel who created a considerable diversion. He was confined in a palm-leaf bag, and as soon as I opened it he shot out like a jack-in-the-box, bit my hand, and then galloped off across the veranda. Jacob gave chase, and as he drew near, the squirrel suddenly darted to one side and then ran down the steps, weaving his way skilfully through the dozens of black legs that stood there. The panic he created was tremendous: those on the first step leapt into the air as he rushed at their feet, lost their balance, and fell backwards against those on the next step. They, in turn, fell against the ones below them, who went down like grass before a scythe. In a matter of seconds the steps were covered with a tangled mass of struggling bodies, with arms and legs sticking out at the oddest angles. I quite thought that the unfortunate squirrel would be crushed to death under this human avalanche, but to my surprise he appeared at the bottom of the steps apparently unhurt, flipped his tail a couple of times and set off down the road at a brisk trot, leaving behind him a scene which looked like a negro version of the Odessa steps massacre. At the top of the steps I was fuming impotently and struggling to push my way through the tangle of Africans, for the squirrel was a rarity, and I was determined that he should not escape. Half-way down someone clutched my ankle and I collapsed abruptly on top of a large body which, judging from the bits I could see, was female. I glanced desperately down at the road as I endeavoured to regain my feet, and to my joy I saw a band of some twenty young men approaching. Seeing the squirrel, they stopped short, whereupon the creature sat up and sniffed at them suspiciously.

  ‘You!’ I roared, ‘you dere for de road … catch dat beef.’

  The young men put down their bundles and advanced determinedly upon the squirrel, who took one look at them and then turned and fled. They set off in hot pursuit, each resolved that he should be the one to recapture the rodent. The squirrel ran well, but he was no match for the long legs of his pursuers. They drew level with him in a tight bunch, their faces grim and set. Then, to my horror, they launched themselves at my precious specimen in a body, and for the second time the squirrel disappeared under a huge pile of struggling Africans. This time, I thought, the poor beast really would be crushed, but that squirrel seemed indestructible. When the heap in the road had sorted itself out a bit, one of the young men stood up holding the chattering and panting squirrel by the scruff of its neck.

  ‘Masa!’ he called, beaming up at me, ‘I done catch um!’

  I threw down a bag for him to put the animal in, and then it was passed up the steps to me. Hastily I got the beast into a cage so that I could examine him to make sure he was not damaged in any way, but he seemed all right except that he was in an extremely bad temper. He was a Black-eared Squirrel, perhaps one of the most beautiful of the Cameroon squirrels. His upper parts were a deep olive green, while his b
elly was a rich yellow-orange. Along his sides were a series of white spots, set in a line from shoulder to buttocks, and there was a rim of black fur marking the edge of each ear, making him look as though he had never washed behind them. But the most beautiful part of his furry anatomy was his tail. This was long and tremendously bushy: the upper parts were a brindled greeny-brown, while the underparts were the most vivid flame-orange imaginable. Placed in a cage he flipped this dazzling tail at me once or twice, and then squatted down to the stern task of devouring a mango which I had put in there for him. I watched him fondly, thinking what a lucky escape he had had, and how pleased I was to have got him. If I had known what trouble he was going to cause in the future I might have viewed his arrival with considerably less excitement.

  I turned my attention back to the various containers that littered the veranda, and picked up a large calabash at random. As usual, its neck was stuffed with a tightly packed plug of green leaves; I removed these and peered into the depths, but the calabash was so capacious and so dark that I could not see what was inside. I carried it to the head of the steps and held it up.

  ‘Which side de man who done bring dis calabash?’ I asked.

  ‘Na me, sah, na me!’ shouted a man half-way down the steps.

  It was always a source of astonishment to me how the Africans could distinguish their own calabashes among hundreds of others. Except for a difference in size I could never tell one from the other, but the Africans knew at a glance which was theirs and which belonged to some other hunter.

  ‘What beef ’e dere-dere for inside?’ I asked, negligently swinging the calabash by its cord.

  ‘Snake, sah,’ said the man, and I hastily replaced the plug of green leaves.

  ‘What kind of snake, my friend?’

  ‘Na Gera, sah.’

  I consulted my list of local names and found this meant a Green-leaf Viper. These were common and beautiful snakes in Bafut, and I already had quite a number of them. They were about eighteen inches long, a startlingly bright grass green in colour, with canary-yellow bellies and broad diagonal white stripes along their sides. I carried the calabash over to empty the new arrival into the shallow, gauze-topped box in which I kept vipers. Now, emptying a snake from a calabash into a cage is one of the simplest of operations, providing you observe one or two rudimentary rules. First, make sure that any inmates of the cage are far away from the door. This I did. Secondly, make sure how many snakes you have in the calabash before starting to shake them out. This I omitted to do.

  I opened the door of the cage, unplugged the mouth of the calabash and began to shake gently. Sometimes it requires quite a lot of shaking to get a snake out of a calabash, for he will coil himself round inside, and press himself against the sides, making it difficult to dislodge him. Jacob stood behind me, breathing heavily down my neck, and behind him stood a solid wall of Africans, watching open-mouthed. I shook the calabash gently, and nothing happened. I shook it a bit harder, with the same result. I had never known a viper cling with such tenacity to the interior of a receptacle. Becoming irritated, I gave the calabash a really vigorous shaking, and it promptly broke in half. An intricately tangled knot of Green-leaf Vipers, composed of about half a dozen large, vigorous, and angry snakes, fell out on to the cage with what can only be described as a sickening thud.

  They were plaited together in such a large and solid ball that instead of falling through the door and into the cage, they got jammed half-way, so that I could not slam the door on them. Then, with a fluid grace which I had no time to admire, they disentangled themselves and wriggled determinedly over the edge of the door and on to the floor. Here they spread out fan-wise with an almost military precision, and came towards us. Jacob and the Africans who had been jammed behind him disappeared with the startling suddenness of a conjuring trick. I could hardly blame them, for none of them was wearing shoes. But I was not clad to gallivant with a tribe of vipers either, for I was wearing shorts and a pair of sandals. My only armament, moreover, consisted of the two halves of the broken calabash, which is not the most useful thing to have when tackling a snake. Leaving the snakes in sole charge of the veranda, I shot into my bedroom. Here I found a stick, and then went cautiously out on to the veranda again. The snakes had scattered widely, so they were quite easy to corner, pin down with the stick, and then pick up. One by one I dropped them into the cage, and then shut and locked the door with a sigh of relief. The Africans reappeared just as suddenly as they had disappeared, all chattering and laughing and clicking their fingers as they described to each other the great danger they had been in. I fixed the snake-bringer with a very cold eye.

  ‘You!’ I said, ‘why you no tell me dere be plenty snake for inside dat calabash, eh?’

  ‘Wah!’ he said, looking surprised, ‘I done tell Masa dere be snake for inside.’

  ‘Snake, yes. One snake. You no tell me dere be six for inside.’

  ‘I done tell Masa dere be snake for inside,’ he said indignantly.

  ‘I done ask you what beef you done bring,’ I explained patiently,’ and you say, “snake”. You no say dere be six snake. How you tink I go savvay how many snake you bring, eh? You tink sometime I get juju for my eye and I go savvay how many snake you done catch?’

  ‘Stupid man,’ said Jacob, joining in the fray. ‘Sometime dis snake bite Masa, and Masa go die. Den how you go do, eh?’

  I turned on Jacob.

  ‘I noticed that you were conspicuous by your absence, my noble and heroic creature.’

  ‘Yes, sah!’ said Jacob, beaming.

  It was not until quite late that evening that the last hunter had been paid, and I was left with such a weird assortment of live creatures on my hands that it took me until three o’clock the following morning to cage them. Even so, there were five large rats left over, and no box from which to make a cage. I was forced to release them in my bedroom, where they spent the entire night trying to gnaw through the leg of the table.

  The next morning when I arose and cleaned out and fed my now considerable collection, I thought that probably nothing more would turn up that day. I was wrong. The Bafutians had obviously thrown themselves wholeheartedly into the task of providing me with specimens, and by ten o’clock the roadway and the seventy-five steps were black with people, and in desperation I had to bargain for the creatures. By lunch-time it was obvious that the supply of animals had far exceeded my store of wood and boxes to make cages for them, so I was forced to employ a team of small boys to tour Bafut, buying up any and every box or plank of wood they could find. The prices I had to pay for boxes were exorbitant, for to the African any sort of receptacle, be it a bottle, an old tin or a box, was worth its weight in gold.

  By four o’clock that evening both the staff and I were exhausted, and we had been bitten so many times and in so many places by such a variety of creatures that any additional bites went almost unnoticed. The whole villa was overflowing with animals, and they squeaked and chirruped, rattled and bumped in their calabashes, baskets, and sacks while we worked furiously to make the cages for them. It was one of those twenty-four hours that one prefers to forget. By midnight we were all so tired we could hardly keep awake, and there were still some ten cages to be made; a large pot of tea, heavily laced with whisky, gave us a sort of spurious enthusiasm for our task that carried us on, and at two-thirty the last nail was driven in and the last animal released into its new quarters. As I crawled into bed, I was horribly aware of the fact that I should have to be up at six the next morning if I wanted to have everything cleaned and fed by the time the next influx of specimens began.

  The next day was, if anything, slightly worse than the preceding one, for the Bafutians started to arrive before I had finished attending to the collection. There is nothing quite so nerve-racking as struggling to clean and feed several dozen creatures when twenty or thirty more have arrived in airless and insanitary containers and are crying out for attention. As I watched out of the corner of my eye the pile of calaba
shes and baskets growing on the veranda, so the number of cages that I had still to clean and attend to seemed to multiply, until I felt rather as Hercules must have felt when he got his first glimpse of the Augean stables.