Three Singles to Adventure

by Gerald Durrell

  ‘Where did it go?’

  Bob rose slowly to his feet.

  ‘I couldn’t tell you,’ he said. ‘I was more concerned with finding out if I had broken my neck than watching where your specimen went to.’

  We searched all around and under the house, but could find no trace of the snake. I discovered that it had escaped by pushing its way through a minute tear in the corner of the sack. At least, the tear must have been small when it started, but now the sack looked as though it had two mouths. As we sat down for tea I delivered a long tirade about the loss of such a nice specimen.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Bob, ‘I expect it will turn up in Ivan’s hammock tonight, and then he can recapture it for you.’

  Ivan said nothing, but from the expression on his face I could tell that the idea of finding an anaconda in his hammock did not appeal to him.

  Our tea was interrupted by the arrival of a short, fat, and extremely bashful Chinaman carrying under his arm a large and ridiculous bird. It was about the size of a domestic turkey, and clad in sober black feathers, except for a few white ones on the wings. Its head was surmounted by a crest of curly feathers that looked rather like a wind-swept toupe. The beak was short and thick, swollen at the base into a great cere round the nostrils. This beak, together with the heavy, chicken-like feet, was bright canary yellow. The bird stared at us with a pair of large, dark, soulful eyes that had a mad expression in them.

  After a certain amount of bargaining with the Chinaman I bought this curassow, and the owner stooped and placed the bird at our feet. It stood there for a minute blinking its eyes and uttering a soft and plaintive ‘peet . . . peet . . . peet’, a noise that was quite out of keeping with the size and appearance of the bird. I bent down and started to scratch its head, and immediately the curassow closed its eyes and fell flat on the ground, shivering its wings in ecstasy and giving vent to a throaty crooning. Each time I stopped scratching it would open its eyes and regard me with astonishment, peet-peetpeeting in tones of injured entreaty. When it found that I had no intention of sitting there all afternoon massaging its head, it rose heavily to its feet and approached my legs, still peeting ridiculously. Slowly and cunningly it crept forward. Then it lay down across my shoes, closed its eyes and started to croon again. Neither Bob nor I had ever met quite such a gentle, stupid, and amiable bird, and we christened it Cuthbert forthwith, as it was the only name we could think of that perfectly fitted its sloppy character.

  The Chinaman had assured us that Cuthbert was so tame that he would not wander, so we let him have the run of the house, only shutting him up at night. The first evening, he gave us a sample of what we were to expect. We discovered the wretched bird had a passion for human company; not only that, but he liked to be as near as possible to one. After the Chinaman had departed I started work on the diary, which was sadly behind hand. It was not long before Cuthbert decided he could do with a little attention, so he flew up on to the table with a great clatter of wings. He walked across it slowly, peeting in pleased tones, and tried to lie across the paper I was writing on. I pushed him away, and he stepped backwards with an expression of injured innocence and upset the ink. While I was mopping this up he proceeded to embellish two pages of the diary with his private seal, which was large and of a clinging consistency. This meant that I had to rewrite two pages. Meanwhile Cuthbert made several cunning attempts to climb into my lap and was vigorously repulsed. Finding the slow approach did not work, he thought about it for a while and then decided the best method would be to take me by surprise, so he tried to fly up on to my shoulder. He missed his mark and fell heavily on to the table, upsetting the ink for the second time. During the whole of this performance he kept up his ridiculous peeting. Finally I lost patience with him and pushed him off the table, so he retreated to a corner of the room and sulked.

  Not long afterwards Bob came in to hang up the hammocks, and Cuthbert greeted his arrival with delight. While Bob was absorbed in the job of disentangling the hammocks from their ropes, Cuthbert cautiously approached across the floor and lay down just behind his feet. During the course of his struggles with a hammock Bob stepped back-wards and tripped heavily over the recumbent bird behind him. Cuthbert gave a squawk of alarm and retired to his corner again. When he judged that Bob was once more engrossed, he shuffled forward and laid himself across his shoes. The next thing I knew there was a crash, and Bob fell to the floor together with the hammocks. From underneath the wreckage of mosquito-nets and ropes Cuthbert peered, peeting indignantly.

  ‘It’s all very well for you to laugh,’ said Bob savagely, ‘but if you don’t remove this disgusting bird you’re going to be minus a specimen. I don’t mind him making love to me when I’ve got nothing better to do, but I can’t deal with his attentions and hang up hammocks.’

  So Cuthbert was consigned to the animal room. There I tied him by the leg to one of the cages and left him peeting pathetically after me.

  That night, as we sat on our front steps smoking and talking, we allowed Cuthbert to come and sit with us. Ivan had news for us; he had been to see the elusive Cordai and discovered that this gentleman had been on a trip to Georgetown. He had now finished his business, however, and was willing to guide us to the lake. He would be calling for us at a very early hour the next morning. Ivan seemed to think that he really would turn up this time, but I was inclined to be sceptical.

  The night was warm, and the air resounded with the crinkling noise of the crickets. Presently this noise was increased by a tree-frog in a neighbouring bush, that let forth a series of small, polite belches and then fell silent, as though embarrassed at its own bad taste. But soon it was answered by another of its kind, and it replied shyly. We were just discussing whether we ought to go and catch one of these mannerless amphibians, when we saw a group of small lanterns bobbing down the road towards us. When they came opposite to us the crowd turned off the road and crossed our little bridge, their bare feet scuffing on the boards. As they came to a halt at the bottom of the steps I recognised some of the East Indian hunters I had interviewed the night before.

  ‘Good night, Chief,’ they said in chorus. ‘We have brought animals.’

  We went into our tiny living room, and the hunters crowded after us, filling the small space and blocking every door and window. Their faces, bronze in the lamplight, were alight with eagerness to show us their spoils. The first man pushed forward and laid his offering on the table in front of us: an old flour-bag full of creatures that slithered and wiggled.

  ‘Lizards, Chief,’ he grinned.

  I undid the neck of the bag, and immediately an ameva poked its head out and fastened its jaws on my thumb. The house rocked with the hunters’ laughter. As I pushed the lovely reptile back into the bag I saw that he was confined with a number of his brethren.

  ‘Here,’ I said, passing the bag to Bob, ‘you’re the one that likes these things; you count them.’

  Ivan and I bargained with the man, while Bob, assisted by one of the hunters, carefully counted the lizards. Two got loose and shot off through the forest of brown legs around the table, but they were quickly recaptured.

  The next offering was a rather insecure-looking basket containing two jet-black snakes about four feet long. The last six inches of their tails were bright yellow. Bob, obviously with memories of the anaconda, eyed them with considerable distaste. Ivan assured us they were a harmless species, known locally as yellowtails. Carefully we persuaded the reptiles to vacate the basket for a more secure sack, and did so without getting bitten. This was quite a feat, as the snakes were striking wildly at everything they could see. After we had dealt with the yellowtails four huge iguanas were placed on the table. Their legs had been twisted up over their backs and tied together with string in a most painful and dangerous manner. I had to explain to the hunters that although this might be the best way to take iguanas to market it was not the way I wanted them bro
ught to me. But the great lizards did not seem any the worse, probably because they had only been tied up a short time.

  Then came the crowning point of the evening. A large wooden box was put before me; I looked through the wooden slats nailed across the top and found it was full of the most delightful little monkeys. They were slim, delicate little creatures clothed in greenish fur, except for the fringe round their faces, which was yellow, and the hair on their big ears, which was white. Their faces were black, and they had light amber eyes. Their little faces peering up at me reminded me irresistibly of a bed of pansies. They had the most extraordinary heads, bulbous and egg-shaped, that seemed almost too big for their slight bodies. They clung together nervously, giving shrill, twittering cries.

  ‘What are they?’ asked Bob, who was delighted with them. ‘Squirrel monkeys, but I don’t know what they call them here.’

  ‘Sakiwinkis, Chief,’ came a chorus from the hunters.

  Certainly the name suited them perfectly, and sounded not unlike their twittering cries. There were five of these timid creatures huddled in the box, and it was obviously much too small for them. So, after paying off the hunters, I set to work and built them a larger cage; then I transferred them to their new quarters and put them in the animal room.

  Cuthbert meanwhile had been having a wonderful time. With so many feet of different colours in the room, he had found plenty of scope for displaying his affection for the human race, and had prostrated himself in front of nearly every hunter. Now I felt it was long past his natural bedtime, so I put him in the animal room and shut the door. Just as we had turned out the light and crawled gingerly into our hammocks, we were startled by the most frightful noise: loud, protesting squawks from Cuthbert, combined with shrill squeaking from the sakiwinkis. I lit the lamp and hurried in to see what had happened.

  I found Cuthbert sitting on the floor looking very disgruntled and peeting angrily to himself. Apparently he had decided to roost on the top of the sakiwinkis’ cage and had flown up there to do so. Unfortunately he had not noticed that his tail dangled down in front of the bars. The monkeys had obviously been intrigued by his tail, which they could see quite clearly in the moonlight, and so they had pushed their small hands out through the bars to find out what it was. In spite of their delicate appearance, sakiwinkis have a grip like a vice, and when Cuthbert had felt them seize his tail he had shot up towards the ceiling like a rocket and left two of his large tail feathers in their hands. I soothed his ruffled feelings, fixed him up a new place to roost on and took the precaution of tying him up so that he could not get near the monkeys again. It was a long time before they stopped discussing the affair in their twittery voices and Cuthbert stopped peeting and went to sleep. But it was the last time that Cuthbert ever went near the sakiwinkis.

  2. Red Howlers and Rats

  We set off for the lake in the first pale light of dawn. The birds in the trees around our little hut were just awakening and starting to chirrup doubtfully at the new day. By the time the sun came up we were several miles on our way, following a narrow, twisting path that led through the green rice fields and the placid canals. In this golden morning light we could see that we were surrounded by birds, a twinkling, moving patchwork of bright colours in the trees and bushes around us. In the small, stunted trees along the edge of the fields were dozens of blue tanagers giving their thin, reedy call-note as they hopped through the branches hunting for insects. The size of a sparrow, they had dark blue wings, while the rest of their bodies were clad in feathers of the most delicate and celestial blue imaginable. In one tree I saw three of these tanagers in company with five marsh birds, jet-black little birds with dandelion-yellow heads. The colour combination of these two species feeding together was startling. In among the frail green rice shoots there were great numbers of military starlings, a thrush-like bird with an extraordinarily vivid pink breast. They looked like exotic fireworks as they burst out of the undergrowth when we passed.

  It struck me as very curious that so many birds in Guiana had such conspicuous colouration. In England if you see a green woodpecker on a suburban lawn it looks bright and tropical, but see the same bird in an oak-wood in spring and you will be astonished that those bright colours should merge so beautifully with the leaves. A multi-coloured parrot in a zoo cage looks vivid, yet in its home forest it would be most difficult to see. The same rule applies to birds almost the world over, but in Guiana a great many species seemed never to have heard of the art of protective colouration. The blue tanagers against the leafy background were about as well concealed as a Union Jack on a snowfield; the military starlings flashed their red breasts at you like miniature traffic-lights, demanding to be noticed; the marsh birds were bright silhouettes of yellow and black against the green. The sight of all these birds busily feeding against a good showy background of green herbage ought to have been enough to bring every hawk for miles to the spot. I pondered for a long time on the apparently reckless behaviour of these birds but could think of no satisfactory explanation.

  We left the flat, lush area of cultivation and walked suddenly into an astonishing landscape. Stunted, moss-tangled trees grew in little clumps, and around the trunks straggled a dusty and sparse-looking carpet of low growth. In between these little oases stretched great barren areas of sand, white and glittering like a new fall of snow. The sand itself was fine and white, and it was mixed with millions of tiny mica chips that reflected the morning sun with the glittering brilliance of a landscape of diamonds. Some time before we had reached this strange white wilderness Cordai had removed his shoes, and I now saw why: with his bare feet he flitted across the glinting sand as though he was wearing snowshoes, while Bob, Ivan, and I floundered behind, sinking up to our ankles and getting our shoes full of it.

  These sand reefs — or mouries, as they are called in Guiana — are found in many localities. They are really the remains of an ancient seabed that once spread across the land. From a botanist’s point of view they are of absorbing interest, for the shrubs and low growth that flourish on them are either peculiar to that type of country, and found nowhere else in Guiana, or else strange variations of the humid forest flora that have adapted themselves to live in that desiccated terrain. Some of the gnarled trees had great bunches of orchids spouting from the bark like pink waterfalls of flowers, and in this desert-like country they looked very bright and succulent, and completely out of place. Other trees were decorated with grey mud termites’ nests among the branches, and from a hole in one of them a pair of tiny parrakeets flew out as we passed, and went wheezing and chittering through the trees. But the chief occupants of this mourie were hundreds of big amevas, who seemed to favour this white landscape, against which their bright colouring showed to advantage. They seemed tamer than the ones nearer Adventure and they would let us approach quite close before slithering slowly away. With such a meagre scattering of undergrowth I wondered how so many large and voracious lizards found enough insect food to keep themselves alive, but they all looked fat and heavy.

  A Guianian sand reef may be of great botanical and zoological interest, but it is a most exhausting place to cross in a hurry. After we had travelled across two miles or so of sand, I found my interest waning considerably. I was extremely hot, and the intense, glittering surface was making my eyes ache. Bob and Ivan seemed to be in a similar condition, but Cordai, irritatingly enough, seemed as fresh as when he started. We three staggered along behind him, casting black and brooding looks at his back. Then, as suddenly as we had entered it, we left the reef and found ourselves in the blessed shade of thick wood that bordered a wide and shallow canal. Cordai seemed willing to go on, but he was outvoted by three to one, and we lay down in the shade for a rest. As we lay there quietly, without talking, a flock of tiny birds arrived in the tangle of branches above us and flipped from twig to twig, cheeping excitedly. They were plump little things, with intelligent domed heads and large dark eyes. The top half of
their bodies was a deep, shining Prussian blue, which looked black until the sun shone on its glossy surface, and the underparts were a rich yellow-orange. They hopped and fluttered through the leaves, carrying on their excited, tinkling conversation with one another and occasionally hanging head downwards to peer suspiciously at us. I nudged Bob and pointed out the birds to him.

  ‘What are they? They look like something out of Walt Disney.’

  Tanagra Violacea,’ I intoned sonorously.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tanagra Violacea. That’s what they’re called.’

  Bob looked at me closely to see if I was joking.

  ‘I can’t understand why you zoologists insist on burdening creatures with such awful names,’ he said at last.

  ‘In this particular case I agree that the name is not very suitable,’ I admitted, sitting up.

  The Tanagra Violacea, alarmed to see that we were not, after all, part of the undergrowth, flew off twittering wildly. Cordai insisted that the lake was not far away now and that another hour’s walk would bring us to it. Bob, on hearing this, went and cut himself a large staff from the surrounding brushwood, in case we had to cross any more sand reefs. He was swishing it about in a most professional manner when he happened to hit a clump of undergrowth behind him, and immediately there arose a loud squeaking wail from amongst the leaves, which aroused us to immediate action. Cordai and Ivan executed a flanking movement on the clump of herbage, while Bob and I approached from the front. We parted the leaves and peered among the grass stalks, but there was nothing to be seen.