Three Singles to Adventure

by Gerald Durrell

  One of the most charming traits in the Amerindian character is their delight in keeping pets, and their villages usually contained a weird assortment of monkeys, parrots, toucans, and other wild creatures that they had adopted. Most primitive people live a hard and precarious life in jungle or grassland, and you generally find that their only interest in animals is a purely culinary one. You cannot blame them, because for these people the task of keeping alive is a hard and constant struggle. They do not simply lie about in a tropical paradise and pluck what they need from the nearest bush. The well-stocked jungle of Tarzan has not, I am afraid, spread beyond the confines of Hollywood. It is therefore all the more remarkable to find the Amerindians getting such pleasure out of keeping pets, taming them with such ease and gentleness, and sometimes (though we offered ample reward) refusing to part with them.

  The schoolmaster found for us two stalwart Amerindians who were to paddle us to this village. When they appeared outside our hut early one morning we asked them how far the village was and how long it would take us to get there and back. They said, rather vaguely, that it was not very far and that we should not be long on the journey. At about six o’clock that evening, when we were still paddling home, I remembered their replies and decided that there was a vast discrepancy between our idea of a short time and an Amerindian’s. But we did not know this in the morning, so we set off in high spirits. We took no food with us because, as we explained to Ivan, we would be back by lunchtime.

  We travelled in a long, deep-bellied canoe, Bob and I sitting in the middle, with an Amerindian at each end. Going through the creeks in a canoe is, perhaps, the best way to enjoy them. There is no noise, except the clop and gurgle of the paddles, rhythmic as a heartbeat. Occasionally one of the paddlers would lift his voice in song, a brief, lilting and rather mournful little tune that ended as suddenly as it began. It would echo and die across the sunlit water, and then there would be silence again, broken only by an occasional muttered curse as Bob or I pinched our fingers between the paddles and the sides of the canoe. We were helping with the paddling, having offered to do so in a weak moment; after an hour or so, when the first blisters started to come up, I began to realise there was more to paddling a dugout than I had previously suspected.

  We slid smoothly down mile after mile of creek, the orchid decorated trees curving over us to form a delicate shimmering silhouette against the intense blue sky. They cast their tattered shadows on the water, turning the creek into a pathway of polished tortoiseshell. Occasionally the creek led across a piece of flooded savannah, where the top of the grass rose golden above the water. In one of these places we passed a spot where the grass had been trampled and squashed into a rough circle; from this depression led a trail weaving across the savannah where something had dragged itself, leaving a neat parting in the grass. One of the paddlers explained that it was the resting-place of an anaconda and, if the trail was anything to go by, it must have been a remarkably large one.

  After three hours paddling there was still no sign of a village; in fact we had seen no sign of native life at all. There was, however, plenty of animal life to be seen. We passed under a great tree with a bushel of white and gold orchids strewn about its trunk and branches, and in it a troop of five toucans played, leaping and scuttling among the twigs, peering at us with their great beaks cocked up, uttering high pitched, creaking yaps, like a group of asthmatic pekinese. In a tangle of reeds and branches we saw a tiger bittern, his orange and fawn plumage streaked with chocolate brown, squatting immobile on a small mud-bank. We drifted past him, and he was so close I could have touched him with my paddle, but he never moved a fraction of an inch the whole time we were in sight, relying on his lovely camouflage to save him.

  At one point the creek widened into something almost the size of a lake, a great oval area in which no water was visible under the carpet of water-lilies, a forest of pink and white blooms against shining green leaves. The bows of the canoe pushed through this mass of flowers with a soft, crisp rustling, and we could feel the bottom of the dugout being pulled and tangled among the long, rubbery lily-stalks. Jacanas fled before us across the leaves, fluttering their vivid yellow wings; a pair of muscovy ducks rose out of the reeds with a tremendous amount of splashing and flew heavily away over the forest. Tiny fish leapt ahead of the canoe, and a small, thin snake uncoiled himself from his bed on a sun-warmed lily-leaf and slid into the water. The air vibrated with the sound of the multitude of dragonflies, gold, blue, green, scarlet and bronze, that zoomed and hovered about us or settled briefly on the lily-leaves, trembling their glass-like wings nervously.

  The canoe plunged once more into the creek, and after half a mile or so we heard to our joy, voices and laughter echoing through the trees. We slid along in the shadow of the bank and then turned into a tiny bay where a group of Amerindian women were washing in the warm creek water, splashing, laughing, and chattering as cheerfully as a group of birds. They surrounded us as we landed, a naked, grinning wall of brown humanity, and led us up to the village, talking and laughing excitedly. The village lay behind a belt of trees and consisted of seven or eight large huts. These were just sloping palm-leaf roofs supported on four poles. The floors were raised two or three feet from the ground to allow for any flood water that might inundate the village. They were simply furnished with a few cotton hammocks strung about and one or two iron cooking pots.

  The elderly, wrinkled headman came to greet us, shook hands fervently and led us into one of the huts, where we all sat down and smiled at each other in silence for about five minutes. When a group of people has no common language it cuts down small talk to the minimum. The headman, still smiling at us delightedly, issued a curt order, and a youth shinned up a nearby palm tree and cut down two coconuts. The ends were lopped off, and they were ceremoniously handed to us so that we could quench our thirst with the sweet milk they contained. I tilted my head back to drain the last drops from the shell, when I saw a creature sitting above me on a beam, and the sight of it so surprised me that I started to laugh. This is not the wisest thing to do when drinking out of a coconut. Between gasps and coughs I gestured helplessly at the roof; luckily, the headman understood me, and, climbing into a hammock, he reached up and seized the animal by its tail and pulled it off the beam. It uttered a series of pathetic grunts as it dangled by its tail, revolving slowly.

  ‘Good God!’ said Bob, catching sight of its face as it spun round. ‘What on earth’s that?’

  Bob’s surprise was natural, for the headman was holding one of the most ridiculous-looking creatures imaginable.

  ‘That,’ I said, still coughing, ‘is a real, live pimpla hog.’

  Now the pimpla hog was an animal that had kept cropping up in conversation with hunters wherever we had been in Guiana. Sooner or later the inhabitants of the place we were in would ask me if I wanted a pimpla hog. I always replied that I did, whereupon they would promise to get me one. That would be the end of the matter. They would go away and never mention the animal again, and no specimen would be forthcoming. Pimpla hogs are tree porcupines, and porcupines are generally common enough and fairly simple to catch, so when none turned up I began to wonder what the reason was. Beyond raising the market price of the beast a trifle, I did nothing constructive. I imagined that one porcupine would be much like another, and I was not greatly enamoured of the family. If I had only known from the beginning what charming and lovable beasts pimpla hogs were I would have made desperate efforts to get some. In fact, I would have gone on buying them if they had arrived by the sackful, for once I got to know them I found them quite irresistible.

  The headman set the beast on the floor, where it immediately sat up on its hind legs and gazed soulfully at us, presenting such a ludicrous appearance that both Bob and I were convulsed with laughter. It was about the size of a Scotch terrier, clad completely in long, sharp black and white spines. It had fat little paws and a long, hairy, and prehensile
tail. But it was the face that was so ridiculous, for peering out of this mass of spines was a visage so like that of the late W.C. Fields that it took your breath away. There was the great swollen nose whiffling to and fro and on each side a small, cunning, and yet somehow sad little eye brimming with unshed tears.

  Regarding us with all the shrewd malignancy of the great comedian, the porcupine bunched its little front paws into fists and started to sway back and forth, looking like a pugilist who had received the knock-out blow and was just about to go down for the count. Then, suddenly, it forgot it was being a bloodthirsty boxer, sat down on fat haunches and started to scratch itself thoroughly; a blissful expression spread over its face, while its nose twitched and snuffled. I had only to look once at that ridiculous face to realise that I had become a pimpla hog fan for life, so I paid the headman’s price without a murmur.

  The tree porcupine is, in my opinion, the only real comedian in the animal world. Monkeys can be comic, but only because they present a slightly disconcerting caricature of ourselves; ducks can be funny, but not surely by any effort on their part – they are simply made like that; other animals can amuse us in different ways. But I have yet to meet an animal, other than the tree porcupine, that has all the trappings of a clown and uses them with such consummate skill. To watch a pimpla hog you would swear that the creature knew it was being funny and, moreover, knew how to play for laughs. The bulbous, wobbling nose almost hiding the small, rheumy eyes with their faintly bewildered expression, the flat, shuffling hind feet and the trailing tail, all these were the make-up of the clown, and the creature seemed to extract the last ounce of humour out of them. It will do something incredibly stupid, but with such a puzzled, benign expression on its face, that you laugh and feel sorry for it in the same moment, this poor, stumbling, well-meaning creature with the balloon nose. This is the essence of the comic art, Chaplinesque genius that can make you laugh at the creature and yet at the same moment be touched by its pathos.

  I have watched two pimpla hogs having a boxing-match. It was fast and furious, and yet not once did one touch the other, nor did their expressions change from that of a kindly and slightly bewildered interest in one another. It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. Again, I have watched one juggling with a mango seed, fumbling clumsily, almost dropping it but never quite doing so. I have seen a clown in a circus doing this with far less skill and success. I would strongly advise any professional comedian to keep a tree porcupine as a pet: he would learn more about his art in ten minutes by watching it than he could learn in ten years by any other means.

  When we had bought the porcupine we made the headman understand by various signs that we should like to see any other animals there were in the village, and in a very short time we had bought four parrots, an agouti, and a young boa constrictor. Then a boy of about fourteen arrived carrying on the end of a stick a furry object, which at first glance I thought was some giant moth cocoon. But a second look informed me that it was something much more interesting and valuable than that, and was, moreover, a creature that I had been longing to obtain.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Bob, who could tell by the expression on my face that something special had turned up.

  ‘One of Amos’s relatives,’ I answered gleefully.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A two-toed anteater. You know, the pygmy kind I wanted.’

  The animal was about six inches long, tubby as a kitten, clad in thick, silky reddish fur, soft as moleskin. It clung to the branch with its curiously shaped claws and its long tail, which was wound round and round the stick. As I touched its back it performed a strange action with incredible speed: it let go of the branch with its front claws and sat up quite straight, supported on the tripod of its feet and tail; it held its arms straight up in the air, as though it was preparing for a high dive. It remained in this position as though frozen. As I touched it again, however, it suddenly came to life; still holding itself stiffly, it let itself fall forward and brought its front legs down with a chopping motion at the same time. If my hand had been in the way the two main claws on its front feet, as large and as sharp as a tiger’s claws, would have landed on the back of my wrist. Having gone through this action, the anteater then stood up again, rigid as a guardsman, and awaited the next round. With its little arms raised to heaven it looked as though it was beseeching the Almighty’s aid in its defence, and I thought how apt the local name of Tank ’e God was for the creature.

  There were so many fascinating things about this diminutive beast that I spent a quiet half-hour brooding over it in the hut, while Bob went for a walk round the village, accompanied by the still-smiling headman. As I examined the anteater a circle of silent Amerindians stood round me, watching me with serious, sympathetic expressions, as though they quite understood and appreciated my interest in the little animal.

  The first thing that interested me about the creature was the adaptation of its feet to arboreal life. The pink pads on the hind feet were concave, so branches could fit easily into the hollow; the four toes were almost of equal length, placed very close together and terminating in long claws. So when the hind foot gripped a branch, the concave pad, the toes and the curved claws formed almost a complete circle round it, providing a strong and firm grip. The front feet were very peculiar: the hand was bent upwards from the wrist, and the two claws curved downwards into the palm. These two long, slender but very sharp claws could be folded or squeezed into the palm of the hand with great strength, rather on the principle of a penknife blade. As a grasping organ this left nothing to be desired, and as a weapon of defence it was extremely useful and could easily draw blood as I found out to my cost. The anteater had a short, rather slender pink muzzle and small, sleepy-looking eyes. The ears were almost invisible in the soft fur. Its movements, except when attacking, were very slow, and its method of crawling about the twigs suspended by its claws made it look more like a form of Lilliputian sloth than an anteater. Being a strictly nocturnal animal it was not, of course, at its best during the day and merely wanted to be’ left alone to sleep. So, when I had finished examining it, I propped the stick up in the corner, and the anteater, clutching the branch passionately, went peacefully to sleep, making no attempt to escape.

  When Bob returned he was carrying rather gingerly on the end of a long stick a battered wicker basket. He looked very pleased with himself.

  ‘While you were wasting your time crouching over that creature,’ he said, ‘I have been obtaining this rare specimen from one of the women, who would otherwise have eaten it, if her signs meant what I think they meant.’

  The rare specimen turned out to be a baby electric eel, some two feet long, which was wiggling vigorously round and round the basket. I was very pleased, for it was the only electric eel that we had obtained up till then. Having praised Bob for his astute piece of collecting I gathered our strange selection of purchases together, and we made our way down to the canoe. Here we thanked the headman for his help, and also the assembled villagers, smiled lavishly at everyone in sight, climbed into the canoe and pushed off.

  I had put all the animals up in the bows, and I sat next to them. Then came Bob and the two paddlers sitting behind him. The pimpla hog amused us by doing a very skilful catwalk up and down the shaft of my paddle and then curling up between my feet and going to sleep. Clutching his twig up in the bows, the Tank ’e God stood frozen in his attitude of supplication, looking not unlike an old ship’s figurehead. Below him the electric eel still wiggled hopefully round its basket.

  The setting sun gilded and polished the creek to a blinding radiance and flooded the forest with light, making the leaves seem an unearthly green against which the orchids stood out like precious stones. Somewhere in the distance a troop of red howlers started their evening song, an immense roaring, thundering cataract of sound that was echoed and magnified by the forest depths. It was a mad, savage, blood-curdling noise, the sort
of cry I could imagine a lynch mob giving if they saw their victim escaping. We often heard the red howlers roaring in Guiana, mostly in the evening or at night. Once I was awakened at two o’clock in the morning by their cries, and at first half-asleep, I imagined it to be the sound of a giant wind tearing through the forest.

  When the howlers’ song had died away, quiet returned to the creek. Under the arch of trees it was already gloomy, and the water lost its amber tints, becoming as smooth and black as pitch. Lazily we paddled, light-headed with hunger and fatigue, humming a vague accompaniment to the songs of the paddlers and the steady beat of their paddles. The air was warm and drowsy, full of the scents of the forest. The regular clop and gurgle of the paddles had a soothing, almost hypnotic, effect, and we began to feel pleasantly sleepy. At that bewitching twilight hour when everything was quiet and peaceful, as we relaxed contentedly in the smoothly sliding canoe, the electric eel escaped from its basket.