Cameroon with Egbert

by Dervla Murphy

  Then Jacques arrived, a non-Fulani from Banyo who spoke French. At first we mistook him for a gendarme; he wore a peaked cap and an immaculate bottle-green uniform with many badges. In fact he was an officer of the Meteorological Service, based in Makelele for a few months while compiling statistics. He looked about Rachel’s age and was a charmer. But his professional interest in figures made him no more accurate than anyone else about times and distances; he assured us that Sambolabbo was seventy kilometres from Makelele.

  As Jacques and Rachel were exercising their French, two beaming girls delivered a big bowl of crisp fried manioc (quite like potato chips) mixed with cubes of tasty though tough fried beef. We devoured this delicacy so fast that Jacques looked alarmed, as though fearing he had fallen among savages. Then Rachel despairingly exclaimed, ‘Suppose that’s all! Suppose they think we don’t like chicken – or cock …’

  I soothed her, ‘That was just to keep us going.’ And sure enough, a giant dish of fufu arrived an hour later, plus lots more (stewed) beef in the jammu-jammu.

  Another hour later the cock reappeared, pot-roasted to tenderness, skilfully herb-flavoured and accompanied by more fufu. At the end of that course, even Rachel was replete.

  Yawning and content, we undressed, put out the lantern and slid under our blankets: it was chilly enough to need them. I was more than half asleep when gales of girlish giggling were followed by tentative knockings on our ill-fitting door.

  ‘You get up!’ I pleaded. So Rachel wrapped herself in her blanket and opened the door – to receive a nine-egg omelette. We expressed profound gratitude and tried to eat it. But the maize-flour had been added, and delicate spices, so it closely resembled an outsize Yorkshire pudding. We kept it for breakfast and it tasted just as good cold.

  The Tchabal Mbabo is a tiny paradise, created aeons ago by some volcanic aberration. If one knew exactly which paths to follow, it could be crossed from south to north in two days, and from east to west in four. The quality of its beauty is, in my experience, unique. Beyond sloping grasslands, isolated stele-like pinnacles of naked rock soar above narrow green river valleys. Mighty basalt walls, curiously fluted, extend for miles along the crests of scrubby ridges in which house-sized boulders are firmly embedded. Gigantic grassy bowls, hundreds of feet deep, appear unexpectedly under one’s boots. In deep clefts, between the rounded flanks of pasture mountains, fragments of ancient forest survive along inaccessible watercourses. And sometimes our path consisted of strange slabs of orange-tinted rock imprinted with white whirly designs looking uncannily like hieroglyphics.

  Even for someone as non-scientific as myself, it was fascinating to contrast this region with the volatile Karakoram landscape. The Tchabal Mbabo seems settled, smooth, stable, secure. Instead of the Himalayas’ frenziedly jagged and friable summits, its peaks have a serene, gentle grandeur, and must surely be unclimbable, except by the most manic stegophilist. One knows the ten-ton boulders above the track won’t come rolling down at the least provocation, nor could the vibrations of one’s voice set off a landslide. There are none of the loose, sharp, multicoloured stones and pebbles and rock-slabs that brighten the Karakoram; all such evidences of geological cataclysms have long since been entombed in the soil or washed away. And many thousands of years ago, when someone first discovered the bliss of living in a temperate climate, the region’s deforestation and massive erosion were completed – which adds to its mature appearance.

  Jacques had recommended the village of Mbabo for our next stop and pointed us in the right direction. We were of course lost within a few hours, but contentedly so; there seemed to be no particular reason for going to Mbabo rather than anywhere else.

  Taking our nine o’clock nuts-and-grazing break by a stream, we saw a jackal sauntering up a nearby ridge. Then Egbert registered slight unease: a well-tusked boar, his mud-bath just finished, was standing some twenty yards away. He closely considered us, before joining his wives and children who were trotting along the skyline with manes and tails erect.

  We were about to move on when the day’s first human appeared, a Bamenda-based Fulani wearing fawn nylon socks and fatally new red plastic shoes. He complained that his feet were killing him. He hated the Tchabal Mbabo because it lacked motor transport. He thought we were mad. Under his arm he carried an umbrella and over his shoulders were slung a thermos-flask and a short Fulani sword in an antique embossed leather shield. No self-respecting Fulani, however urbanised, will travel without his sword – a memento of the good old conquering days.

  The day’s second human was a terrified little boy who made a wide detour to avoid us. Then for hours we met nobody and wondered why this region is so sparsely populated; it could certainly support many more humans and livestock. We passed only one small village, about an hour’s walk from Makelele, where a young man ran after us to present two new-laid eggs. There were also a few solitary compounds, and occasionally in the distance we glimpsed groups of two to four compounds, which hereabouts qualify as ‘villages’ and have their own quarterchiefs. Possibly these mountains were more densely populated, by Bantus, before the infamous razzias of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century; then Fulani raiders captured thousands of slaves, both for their own use and for export. In the 1780s Cameroon and the Niger delta were the main slave sources; during that decade an average of 22,000 men and women were sold every year to White traders.

  Throughout the day we saw several more antelope, warthog families, baboon and capuchin colonies – and a lone aristocratic colobus, pacing the length of an outstretched branch in a grove of huge dead trees. Given a coronet, he might have been on his way to the State Opening of Parliament. Usually these are timid monkeys, yet this splendid creature didn’t at once leap away but stared down at us with calm disdain.

  By then we had lost not only the main path but any path and were merely wandering across country. We had almost reached a cul-de-sac when Rachel noticed a cow-herds’ shelter on a ridge high above us, apparently at the base of an escarpment. Ascending, we saw a deep grassy chasm between ridge and escarpment – a classic trick of this visually deceptive landscape.

  The shelter was a work of art, a conical hut most skilfully woven of coarse golden grass. Three ragged boys emerged and the little ones clutched each other in fear. When I asked, ‘Mbabo?’ the eldest, aged perhaps fourteen, silently pointed into the chasm and up to the escarpment. There was no path, apart from horizontal cattle grooves, and on the near-perpendicular slope below the rock-wall we went astray. Then the boy, who all the time had been watching us, yelled to catch our attention and indicated the correct route.

  ‘They are kind!’ panted Rachel. ‘Why should he care whether or not we get lost?’

  I silently nodded agreement; my lungs felt as though they were bursting.

  On the far side of the escarpment we found a wide path and soon after met a migrating herd, including many calves, being kept on the move by five yodelling nomads who ignored us. Behind them, one man stood leaning against a boulder, waiting on a new-dropped suckling calf. Efforts are made not to move with such tinies, since suckling stops have to be frequent, but mistakes will happen. Later we were to see a few tinies being carried – of course on a head, tied to a board.

  We lunched above an exhilarating panorama of slender pinnacles and broad valleys. Scores of black and white birds – cormorant-sized, long-necked, ungainly – were feeding on the grassy summit. They had flapped awkwardly into the air at our approach, then settled again only fifty yards away. We saw many such flocks in the Tchabal Mbabo, but nowhere else. While we crunched our nuts thunder rumbled in the distance and clouds briefly gathered to the south, then vanished.

  As the terrain became ever wilder two superb red-brown eagles slowly floated down towards the deep valley on our right, passing so close that I didn’t miss my binoculars. Then we met a nomad family on the move, probably following the herd. Egbert seemed to glance with horrified sympathy at their donkey’s bulging load, topped by four striped um
brellas. The husband responded warily to my greeting; unusually, he was carrying the baby. The four walking children, even the toddler, were loaded in proportion to their size. Mother gracefully carried an enormous, unwieldy cloth-wrapped bundle. I turned to watch as, without apparent effort, she swiftly ascended a precipice that would have reduced us – carrying nothing – to breathlessness.

  In the next valley, near a rudimentary two-hut compound, four little boys were pollarding trees on the bank of a stream. Seeing us, they dropped their machetes and raced home, shrieking in panic. That was the day’s thirteenth stream or river; long since we had rashly given up removing our boots before fording. On the banks of the fourteenth the river Djem – we found a campsite as perfect as the day’s trek had been.

  This hidden, oval valley was dominated by a symmetrical rounded rock-mountain, towering mightily half a mile away to the south. To east and west rose high grassy cliffs which almost converged at the base of the mountain, leaving only space enough for the sparkling Djem to race through. Unfortunately the grazing was poor; this whole region badly needed rain. Firewood too was scarce, though adequate. After supper we sat long by the embers, discussing the ethics of genetic engineering and watching the full moon rise above the branches of a wild fig tree. We also discussed a more immediate problem: should Egbert be tethered? Having that afternoon passed many stallions, mares and foals, we reluctantly decided that he should. As there were no trees near the one grassy patch I tied him to a tough-looking bush growing out of the cliff – having first tested its roots, as best a human could.

  Rain seemed possible so we slept in. But we did not sleep soundly; this was by far our noisiest campsite. In a mini-creek only yards away multitudinous frogs croaked incessantly, monotonously. Some night-bird with a peculiarly disagreeable call – a harsh unrhythmic cackle – lived on the cliff just above us and was frequently vocal. Even more disagreeable insect noises – raucous whirrings and hoarse chirrupings – competed with the frogs. Something else (we couldn’t imagine what genus) squeaked piercingly at irregular intervals.

  ‘The peace of the wilderness!’ muttered Rachel, wakening some time around midnight. ‘It’s like sleeping beside the M4 with the window open!’

  The dawn revealed that Egbert had gone AWOL, taking the bush with him. We were only mildly distraught; he could not have gone far, for I had seen him by moonlight at fourish. Searching the obvious places, we discovered a wealthy compound on the eastern clifftop and reported our loss in sign language to Mohamadou Ali, a quarterchief. At once little boys were dispatched in all directions; one of a bush child’s main functions is finding lost animals. Rachel then returned to strike camp, while I checked the nearest of the horse herds we had passed on the previous afternoon.

  From the western clifftop, as I got back to base at 7.30 a.m., I rejoiced to see the randy runaway, looking chastened, standing amidst a group of youths who were animatedly discussing his injuries with Rachel, quite undeterred by her ignorance of Foulfoulde. Stallions resent harem encroachments and are fierce fighters. Egbert had been lucky to get away with a deep bite on his right shoulder, just below the spine, and a ten-inch diagonal kick wound – mercifully superficial – along his right ribs. Both injuries were still bleeding and I washed them by the river before applying Karadol, brought all the way from Ireland for some such occasion. Ten minutes later Egbert rolled vigorously and got rid of the powder; but throughout the day I reapplied it regularly and sometimes it remained in place for an hour or so before the next roll. It helped that there were no flies.

  Mohamadou Ali was one of those Fulanis with what can only be described as ‘a presence’. I felt we should stand up and bow whenever he appeared – as he often did that day, to attend to the needs of his awkward guests. He was deeply upset by our having slept out – and on the ground! – in his ‘village’. But luckily an Anglophone interpreter soon appeared: ‘Our Man from Bamenda’, quipped Rachel, and so he was. Moses soothed the Chief by explaining that we hadn’t known of his compound’s existence until that morning – that we wanted for nothing – that we would gratefully spend the night in his guest hut but would like to spend the day by the river, washing clothes. Our host looked mollified though still somewhat concerned – should he send down chairs? Emphatically not, we said. One of the more harmless aftereffects of colonialism is a deep conviction that physiologically Europeans need chairs.

  Upstream, out of sight of the camp, I found a cold, clear pool deep enough to lie in and wide enough to swim two strokes. In my absence a little girl presented Rachel with six cassavas: quite palatable eaten raw, if one is hungry enough. But Mohamadou Ali saw to it that we had no need of emergency rations that day. On my way back from the pool I saw two of his ‘followers’ carefully carrying tin trays down the cliff. Looking anxious (would we like Fulani fare?), they presented a huge thermos of herbal tea sweetened with wild honey (hereabouts many long black hives hang from trees), dainty pyrex cups and saucers, a big bowl of crisp golden maize-flour buns, elegantly quartered, and a small bowl of clear honey in which to dip them. Seldom have I enjoyed food so much. Those dainty cups were not quite congruous but the herbal tea and wild honey harmonised deliciously with our surroundings.

  As we ate, Mohamadou Ali arrived to ensure that we had all we needed and were feeling in no way neglected. An hour later he was back, personally bearing a dish containing a whole roast chicken, subtly seasoned and tender. And over his shoulder was another thermos of honey tea.

  From Djem’s four scattered compounds an excited group of young men then visited us and settled down, cross-legged under the fig tree, to hold converse with Moses as interpreter.

  Moses was elderly, cheerful, loquacious and shifty-looking. By evening I had hatched an uncharitable theory that he was evading the law, and where better to do so? He defined himself as ‘A Bamenda good Christian of the Ngemba tribe. I am builder, weaver, smith – I serve this Chief plenty ways, I live here now one year, maybe two year. I forget.’

  Having slept by the river, we were of more than ordinary interest. Our campsite was a notoriously haunted spot, so haunted that after sunset no local would even look into that oval valley. Had we heard or seen the devils? Every night they play music and sing and if you hear or see them you soon die in much pain. Regretfully we replied that we had not seen them; to us they sounded like rather jolly congenial fellows. Perhaps, someone suggested, we had used magic strong enough to keep them away. Then someone else recalled that Europeans never see devils, that devils are afraid of Europeans. When a youth mentioned the devils’ white skins, which could be seen shining in the dark, we realised that this legend must be based on a colonialists’ camp-fire sing-song.

  In mid-afternoon the Muslims glanced at the sun, trooped off to the river to wash ritually and turned towards where they (wrongly) supposed Mecca to be. With open contempt, Moses watched them praying. Then he turned to us and said, ‘These people, they live like wild animals! They are savages born in the bush – they have never seen a film or a school, they learn the Koran only. They don’t want to live good, they think only of cattle. Cattle, cattle, cattle! They see animals more important than women and children – they only want families to have help with cattle. They are like stupid cattle themselves – if they would sell animals they can live good in Bamenda!’

  ‘I wonder,’ said Rachel afterwards, ‘how Fulanis describe their Bantu neighbours!’

  Mohamadou Ali was a well-known bovine tycoon; not only did he have a herd of ‘many, many hundred’ but his two teenage sons, now praying, had already built up herds of more than one hundred each and – even his small daughters personally owned ten or fifteen cattle.

  At 5.30 p.m. – well before devil time – two little boys arrived to transport our gear to the guest hut. Each sped up the cliff with various bits of luggage on head, while Moses showed us an easier route. Although we were heavily laden he didn’t offer to share our burdens.

  Mohamadou Ali’s compound was a hamlet in itself: seven large rou
nd huts and a three-roomed ‘bungalow’ with a deep verandah. Our room was also a store; sacks of salt, rice and fertiliser were stacked in one corner. A talented wife had decorated the smooth, reddish mud walls with an intricate pattern of black and white whorls. Surprisingly, there was only a single iron bed.

  Mohamadou Ali soon bustled in with three brightly coloured Nigerian nylon mats (all the rage along our route) which he arranged precisely to cover the whole floor. Then a camp-chair was brought and he ceremoniously opened it and bowed me towards it. A bucket of hot water followed, standing in a huge basin, and finally came the offer of a transistor radio, which we declined with thanks. All evening we could hear it in the distance, broadcasting programmes in English from Nigeria.

  Our host’s eldest unmarried daughter and his two junior wives – all beautiful women, looking about the same age – came together to greet us, bowing with folded hands and murmuring inaudibly. They seemed much more timid that the Makelele womenfolk. Moses told us that the senior wife had been in Banyo hospital for several weeks past, ‘with a devil in her stomach’. To get there she had had to ride to Sambolabbo, where she got a seat on Andrew’s empty beer-crates. (‘The less romantic side of living in lovely Djem,’ noted Rachel.) Years ago there had been another wife – the immediate successor to the first – but she and First quarrelled so incessantly that Mohamadou Ali divorced her and sent her back to her family. She didn’t want to go, because she couldn’t take her two children. ‘But,’ said Moses, ‘a man must throw away troublesome women.’

  Mohamadou Ali was an autocrat; one sensed his unquestioned authority permeating that populous compound: directing, controlling, subduing. As we ate our fufu and mutton stew (there would be no jammu-jammu until the rains came) we heard him reprimanding one son for playing a reed pipe. Later we could see him kneeling on the lamp-lit floor of his hut across the compound, ironing a pale blue robe. Early next day he was going to Banyo market and none of his womenfolk could be trusted to turn him out well enough. Hot, heavy irons were being carried in relays from the kitchen-hut by girls so small that they found their task an effort.