When the Going Was Good

by Evelyn Waugh

  At sundown it became cold and clammy in the carriage; clouds of mosquitoes came in from windows and corridor, biting us to frenzy. Mr Bain remarked gloomily that they were probably all infected with malaria. Everyone has different theories about quinine; Mr Bain recommended constant, large doses, observing parenthetically that they caused deafness, insomnia and impotence.

  We transferred from the train to a ferry steamer and drifted rather disconsolately across to the town. There was a boarding-house kept by a white gentleman in reduced circumstances; here we dined in a swarm of mosquitoes; the house had run out of drink during the New Year celebrations. After dinner to avoid the mosquitoes we walked about the streets for an hour. They were empty and ill-lit. New Amsterdam, eighty years ago, was a prosperous, if sleepy, town with a club and its own society; now there is barely a handful of whites quartered there, the rest having been driven out by mosquitoes and the decay of the sugar trade. At a street corner we met a Jordanite haranguing a few apathetic loafers and a single suspicious policeman. He wore a long white robe and a white turban and he waved a wand of metal tubing; a drowsy little boy sat beside him holding a large Bible. The Jordanites are one of the many queer sects that flourish among Negroes. They derive their name not as might be supposed from the river, but from a recently deceased Mr Jordan from Jamaica; their object seemed partially pious, partially political; they are said to favour polygamy. The present speaker ran round in little circles as he spoke, ‘What for you black men afraid ob de white man? Why you ascared ob his pale face and blue eye? Why do you fear his yellow hair? Because you are all fornicators – dat is de reason. If you were pure of heart you need not fear de white man.’

  Then he saw us and seemed rather embarrassed. ‘’Nother text, boy.’ But the boy was asleep over the Bible. He cracked him sharply on the head with his wand and the child hastily read a verse of Ezekiel and the preacher took up on another subject.

  ‘The black man got a very inferior complex,’ remarked Mr Bain as we resumed our walk.

  Next day we started at dawn. There was a great rainbow over the town. On the way to the quay I noticed a charming old Lutheran Church, relic of the Dutch occupation, that had been invisible the night before.

  A lazy, uneventful day in the paddle steamer up the Berbice River. Monotonous vegetable walls on either bank, occasionally broken by bovianders’ cabins.* Now and then an unstable, dugout canoe would shoot out from the green shadows and an unkempt, bearded figure would deliver or receive a parcel of mail. We slung our hammocks on deck. There was a steward who made gin-swizzles of a kind and served revolting meals at intervals of two hours. On the whole a tolerable day’s journey.

  Our only companions on the top deck were a Belgian rancher, his Indian wife, some of their children, and his wife’s sister. They were the first Indians I had seen. Since they had taken up with a European they wore hats and stockings and high-heeled shoes, but they were very shy, guarding their eyes like nuns, and giggling foolishly when spoken to; they had squat little figures and blank, Mongol faces. They had bought a gramophone and a few records in town, which kept them happy for the twelve hours we were together. Conversation was all between Mr Bain and the rancher, and mostly about horses. Quite different standards of quality seemed to be observed here from those I used to learn from Captain Hance.

  ‘I tell you, Mr Bain, that buckskin of mine was the finest mare bred in this district. You didn’t have to use no spur or whip to her. Why before you was on her back, almost, she was off like the wind and nothing would stop her. And if she didn’t want to go any particular way nothing would make her. Why I’ve been carried six miles out of my course many a time, pulling at her with all my strength. And how she could rear.’

  ‘Yes, she could rear,’ said Mr Bain in wistful admiration. ‘It was lovely to see her.’

  ‘And if she got you down she’d roll on you. She wouldn’t get up till she’d broken every bone in your body. She killed one of my boys that way.’

  ‘But what about my Tiger?’

  ‘Ah, he was a good horse. You could see by the way he rolled his eyes.’

  ‘Did you ever see him buck? Why he’d buck all over the corral. And he was wicked too. He struck out at you if he got a chance.’

  ‘That was a good horse, Tiger. What became of him?’

  ‘Broke his back. He bolted over some rocks into a creek with one of the boys riding him.’

  ‘Still you know I think that for bucking my Shark …’

  And so it went on. Presently I asked in some apprehension, ‘And the horse I am to ride tomorrow. Is he a good horse too?’

  ‘One of the strongest in the country,’ said Mr Bain. ‘It will be just like the English Grand National for you.’

  So the day wore on. The steward trotted about with frightful helpings of curried fish; later with greyish tea and seed cake; later with more fish and lumps of hard, dark beef. The Indian ladies played their gramophone. The rancher had a nap. Mr Bain told me more. At last, about seven, we arrived at our destination, and descended in the dark into a dug-out canoe.

  ‘Be careful, be careful, if you’re not used to them you will certainly be drowned,’ Mr Bain admonished me, thus giving the first evidence of what, for the next few days, was going to prove a somewhat tiresome solicitude for my safety. The trouble was this. The Governor had requested Mr Bain to look after me and, in his kindness, had stressed the fact that the conditions of the country were new to me and that he took a personal interest in my welfare. Mr Bain, in his kindness, interpreted this to mean that something very precious and very fragile had been put into his charge; if any accident were to befall me the Governor would never forgive it; danger, for one of delicate constitution, lurked in every activity of the day. If I helped to saddle the placid pack ox he would cry out, ‘Stand back, be careful, or he will kick out your brains.’ If I picked up my own gun he would say, ‘Be careful, it will go off and shoot you.’

  Fortunately this scrupulous concern began to wear thin after three days’ travel, but during those three days it came as near as anything could to straining my affection and gratitude towards him.

  The dug-out paddled by an indiscernible figure in the stern, swept away from the ship across the dark water; the opposite bank was lightless. We scrambled up the slippery bank (Mr Bain urging me anxiously not to fall down) and could just make out a rise in the ground surmounted by some kind of building; the boatman brought up a lantern and we climbed further. Mr Bain in the meantime asking fretfully, ‘Yetto? Where’s Yetto? I told him to be here with my hammock.’

  ‘Yetto come with de horses this morning. Now him go bottom-side to a party. Him no say nothing about de hammock.’

  ‘Yetto proper bad man,’ said Mr Bain lapsing into vernacular. ‘Him proper Congo.’

  Thus in circumstances of discredit and terms of opprobrium I first heard the name of someone to whom I was later to become warmly attached.

  We climbed the little hill and reached a thatched shelter, open at the sides, where two figures lay asleep in hammocks. They woke up, sat up and stared at us. A black man and his wife. Mr Bain asked them if they knew what Yetto had done with his hammock.

  ‘Him gone to de party.’

  ‘Where dis party?’

  ‘Down to de river. Indian house. All de boys at de party.’

  So we went down to look for Yetto. We paddled almost noiselessly down stream, keeping into the bank. It was an effort to balance in the narrow, shallow craft. Eventually we heard music and hauled in under the bushes.

  The party was in a large Indian hut. It was cosmopolitan in character, being made up of Brazilian vaqueiros, bovianders, blacks and a number of clothed and semi-civilized Indians. Two Brazilians were playing guitars. The hostess came out to greet us.

  ‘Good night,’ she said, shaking hands and leading us in. It was not etiquette to ask for Yetto at once, so we sat on a bench and waited. A girl was walking from guest to guest with a bowl of dark home-brewed liquor; she handed a mug to each in
turn, waiting while they drank and then refilling it for the next. Two or three Negroes were dancing. The Indians sat in stolid rows, silently, soft hats pulled down over their eyes, staring gloomily at the floor. Now and then one would get up, stroll apathetically across to a girl and invite her to dance. The couple would then shuffle round in a somewhat European manner, separate without a word or a glance and resume their seats. The Indians, I learned later, are a solitary people and it takes many hours’ heavy drinking to arouse any social interests in them. In fact the more I saw of Indians the greater I was struck by their similarity to the English. They like living with their own families at great distances from their neighbours; they regard strangers with suspicion and despair; they are unprogressive and unambitious, fond of pets, hunting and fishing; they are undemonstrative in love, unwarlike, morbidly modest; their chief aim seems to be on all occasions to render themselves inconspicuous; in all points, except their love of strong drink and perhaps their improvidence, the direct opposite of the Negro. On this particular evening, however, their only outstanding characteristic was inability to make a party go.

  After a time Yetto was detected drinking guiltily in a corner. He was a large middle-aged black of unusual ugliness. He was comic; huge feet and hands, huge mouth, and an absurd little Hitler moustache. Mr Bain and he talked at some length about the hammock; a conversation in which ‘you proper Congo’ occurred frequently. Then he left the party and came away with us to find it. At last at about ten o’clock Mr Bain and I were established in the rest-house.

  Next morning Yetto and some other boys appeared with the horses and my misgivings of the previous day rapidly subsided. They were very small ponies and stood placidly in the corner of the corral cropping the tops off the arid tufts of grass; they were too lethargic even to switch away the horse flies that clustered on their quarters; mine had been attacked by a vampire bat during the night and bore a slaver of blood on his withers.

  The packing of the ox took some care, and it was noon before we were ready. The black man, who had shared the rest-house the night before, was coming with us. He was manager of the ranch ten or twelve miles away, which was to be our first stop. We mounted and made to start off. My pony would not move.

  ‘Loosen de reins,’ they said.

  I loosened the reins and kicked him and hit. He took a few steps backwards.

  ‘Loosen de reins,’ they said.

  Then I saw how they were riding, with the reins hanging quite loose, their hands folded on the front of the saddle. That is the style all over this part of the world; the reins are never tightened except in an occasional savage jerk; the aids are given on the neck instead of on the bit. Drama in movement is the object aimed at; the vaqueiros like a horse that as soon as they mount will give two or three leaps in the air and then start off at a gallop; it does not matter how short a time the gallop lasts provided he takes them out of sight of the spectator; then after many hours’ monotonous jogging they will spur him into life when they approach either ranch or village, arrive at the gallop, the horse’s mouth lathered with foam, rein him back on to his hocks and dismount in a small dust storm. I had seen this often enough in the old days of the cinema, but had not realized that it occurred in real life.

  We set off across the plain cantering a little but mostly jogging at what for many weeks was to be my normal travelling gait. The country was dead flat and featureless except for ant-hills and occasional clumps of palm; the ground was hard earth and sand tufted with dun-coloured grass; thousands of lizards scattered and darted under the horses’ feet; otherwise there was no sign of life except the black crows who rose at our approach from the carcasses strewn along the track, and resettled to their feast behind us. Here and in the forest we passed a carcass every half-mile. Many were recently dead, for the last drive had lost forty per cent, and these we cantered past holding our breath; others were mere heaps of bone picked white by the ants, the mound of half-digested feed always prominent among the ribs.

  During the ride Mr Bain discoursed to the black rancher about history; I listened fitfully, for my horse was continually dropping behind, but I was never out of earshot of the voice, voluble, rhapsodic, now rising to some sharp catastrophe, now running on evenly, urgently, irresistibly in the shimmering noon heat.

  I caught bits: ‘… once you see there was nothing but water. It says so in the Bible. Water covered the face of the earth. Then he divided the land from the waters. How did he do that, Mr Yerwood? Why, by killing de crabs, and all de shells of de crabs became ground down by the tides and became sand …’

  ‘… then there was Napoleon. He was only a little corporal but he divorced his wife and married the daughter of an Emperor. Mark my words, Mr Yerwood, all dose Bolshevists will be doing that soon …’

  ‘… and why did the English take so long to subdue de little Boers? Because dey were so sporting. When dey take prisoners dey let dem go again for to give dem another chance …’

  We reached our destination in about two hours and found three sheds and a wired corral. It was less than I had expected. Through the influence of the cinema, ‘ranch’ had taken on a rather glorious connotation in my mind; of solid, whitewashed buildings; a courtyard with a great tree casting its shadow in the centre and a balustraded wall, wrought iron gates, a shady interior with old Spanish furniture and a lamp burning before a baroque Madonna, and lovely girls with stock-whips and guitars. I do not say that I had expected to find this at Waranana; but I did feel that the word ‘ranch’ had taken a fall.

  Various dependants of Mr Bain’s were awaiting him here – policemen returning to duty, woodmen in charge of keeping the trail open; he also had stores and saddlery and some horses, left behind on his previous journey. All these he attended to so that by next morning everything was ready for us to start out. A moody young policeman named Price was handed over to me (or me to him), to act as my personal servant. Yetto was never far away, grinning sheepishly and constantly reprimanded. He held an uncertain position, partly government runner, partly groom, partly cook, partly porter.

  Mr Yerwood killed a chicken for us and, after we had dined, joined us and drank some of our rum. He and Mr Bain talked about animals, their stories growing less probable as the evening progressed. Finally Mr Yerwood described a ‘water-monkey’ he had once seen; it was enormous and jet black; it had a grinning mouth full of sharp teeth; it swam at a great speed; its habit was to submerge itself and wait for bathers whom it would draw down and pound to pieces on the rocks at the bottom. Just such an occurrence had happened to a friend of Mr Yerwood’s; every bone in his body was broken when it floated to the surface, Mr Yerwood said.

  Not to be outdone, Mr Bain related how once, when walking in the late afternoon in the neighbourhood of Mount Roraima, he had encountered two Missing Links, a man and his wife slightly over normal size but bowed and simian in their movements; they were naked except for a light covering of soft reddish down; they had stared at Mr Bain a full half-minute, then said something he did not understand, and strolled off into the bush. After that there was little to be said on the subject of animals. It was ten o’clock – late for the district – so we took to our hammocks, leaving the lamp burning as a protection against vampire bats.

  It would be tedious to record the daily details of the journey to Kurupukari. Mr Bain managed everything; I merely trotted beside him; we took six days from the ranch, averaging about fifteen miles a day. Mr Bain often explained how, in normal conditions, he did the whole journey in two stages at full gallop all the way. All the time we passed only one human being – a Portuguese-speaking Indian, padding along on foot, going down to the river on some inscrutable errand. For two days we travelled over grass land and then entered the bush; it was cool and quite sunless. The green, submarine darkness of the jungle has been described frequently enough but it can never, I think, be realized until one has been there. The trail was as broad as an English lane with vast, impenetrable walls of forest rising to a hundred and fifty feet o
n either side; the first twenty feet from the ground were dense undergrowth, then the trunks of the trees emerged, quite bare, like architectural columns rising vertical and featureless until they broke into the solid roof of leaves, through which appeared only rare star points of direct sunlight. There were always men working to keep the trail clear of fallen timber and there were always trees lying across it at frequent intervals. Usually some kind of line had been chopped round these through the bush and we would dismount and lead our horses. There were also creeks every few miles, low at this time of year, so that we could ride through them. In the wet season, Mr Bain said, you had to crawl across a tacuba leading a swimming horse, carry your baggage across and load and reload your pack animals four or five times a day. Sometimes the trail had been completely cleared with a ‘corduroy’ of logs through the marshy places; elsewhere only the undergrowth had been chopped away and the trees stood up in the middle of the path; once we came to a place where the virgin forest had been burned and a second growth of low bush had taken its place; there was loose white sand here, blinding to the eyes after the gloom of the forest, and heavy going for the horses.

  Everyone who has ever been there has remarked on the apparent emptiness of the bush. The real life takes place a hundred feet up in the tree-tops; it is there that you would find all the flowers and parrots and monkeys, high overhead in the sunlight, never coming down except when there is a storm. Occasionally we would find the floor of the trail strewn with petals from flowers out of sight above us.

  We met the first snake on our first day in the bush. Mr Bain and I were riding abreast a mile or so ahead of the baggage. He was telling me his views on marriage (‘… whom God has joined together let no man put asunder. Yes. But tell me this. Who is God? God is love. So when a couple have ceased to love one another …’) when he suddenly reined up and said in a melodramatic whisper: ‘Stop. Look ahead. Dere is a terrible great snake.’ It was in the days when he still regarded my safety as peculiarly precarious. ‘Don’t come near – it may attack you.’