Gerald Durrell (8 page)

At one point in
our journey I discovered alongside the path we were following the immense
rotting carcase of a tree, a hundred and fifty feet of it, stretching its great
length across the floor of the forest. Although it had fallen some considerable
time ago, you could still see how it had splintered and bent the smaller growth
around it, and the great weight of the head foliage had ripped its way
earthwards, creating a small clearing where it had fallen and leaving a gap in
the forest roof so that you could see an area of blue sky above. The roots had
been torn from the earth, twisted and black they looked like a giant hand. In
the palm of this hand was the dark entrance to the hollow interior of the
trunk. I called Elias’s attention to it, and he considered it gravely.

“You think there
be beef for inside?”

“Sometime there
go be beef for inside,” he admitted cautiously.

“All right, we
go look. . . .”

Andraia, the
Carpenter, and the mournful Thomas went to the top end of the trunk while Nick,
Elias, and myself investigated the hole in the base. On close inspection this
entrance hole proved to be some eight feet in diameter, and one could stand up
in it with comfort. Elias and Nick crawled a few feet into the hollow interior,
and sniffed like terriers. All I could smell was the rotting wood and damp
earth.

“Ah,” said
Elias, sniffing furiously. “Na catar beef, he, Nick?”

“I tink so,”
agreed Nick, also sniffing.

I sniffed again,
but could still smell nothing.

“What,” I
inquired of Elias, “is a catar beef?”

“Na big beef,
sah. ’E get skin for ’e back like snake. He go so . . .” and he hunched himself
into a ball to illustrate the habits of the animal.

“Well, how are
we going to get it out?” I asked.

Elias emerged
from the trunk and carried on a rapid conversation in Banyangi with the
Carpenter at the other end of the tree. Then he turned to me: “Masa get
flash-lamp?”

“Yes. . . .
Daniel, bring dat flashlamp from bag. . . .”

With the torch
in his mouth Elias once more got down on all fours and disappeared into the
interior of the tree with much grunting and echoing gasps of “Eh . . . aehh!” I
did not feel it was an opportune moment to remind him that some species of
snake delight in living in such hollow places. I wondered what he would do if
he came upon a snake in that tunnel-like trunk, with no room to turn.

Suddenly, about
twenty feet down the trunk, we heard great knockings and muffled shouts.

“Na whatee . . .
na whatee?” yelled Nick excitedly. A flood of Banyangi echoed along the hollow
trunk to us.

“What’s he say?”
I begged Nick, my visions of a deadly snake becoming more convincing.

“Elias say he
see beef; sah. He say ’e dere for inside. He say make Carpenter put small fire
and smoke go make beef run, den Elias he catch um.”

“Well, go and tell
the Carpenter.”

“Yessir. You get
matches, sah?”

I handed over my
matches, and Nick bounded off to the other end of the tree. I crawled into the
interior and dimly I could see the glow of the torch that indicated Elias’s
position, far down the trunk.

“Elias, are you
all right?”

“Sah?”

“Are you all
right?”

“Yessah. I see
um, sah,” he called excitedly.

“What kind of
beef?”

“Na catar beef,
sah, and ’e get picken for ’e back.”

“Can I come and
see?” I pleaded.

“No, sah, no get
chance here. Dis place too tight, sah,” he called, and then he started to
cough. A great cloud of pungent smoke swept down the trunk, obliterating the
torchlight, filling my lungs and making my eyes water. Elias was making the
interior vibrate with his coughing. I crawled out hurriedly, with streaming
eyes.

“Andraia,” I
yelled, “you make too much smoke . . . you go kill Elias and the beef together
. . . put the fire out, make it small, you hear?”

“Yes, sah, I
hear,” came faintly from the other end of the tree.

Once more I crawled
into the smoke-filled interior.

“You all right,
Elias?”

“I get um, sah,
I get um,” screamed Elias delightedly, between coughs.

“Bring um,” I
called, crawling frantically round on all fours in an endeavour to see through
the smoke, “bring um quick . . .” It seemed hours before the horny soles of his
feet appeared in the entrance, and he emerged choking and coughing and stark
naked, the capture wrapped in his loin-cloth. He grinned at me excitedly.

“I put um for my
cloth, sah,” he said. “I fear sometime de picken go fall.”

“Dis beef run
fast?” I inquired, carrying the mysterious heavy bundle out to a clear spot
before unwrapping it.

“No, sah.”

“He bite?”

“No, sah.”

Fortified with
this knowledge I placed the bundle on the ground and unwrapped it. There
appeared before my eyes the most extraordinary beast. A first glance at the
contents of the loin-cloth showed me what seemed to be a gigantic brown fir
cone, with a smaller pink-grey coloured cone adhering to it. Then I realized
that it was a female Pangolin, or Scaly Anteater, rolled tight into a ball,
with her tiny pale youngster clinging to her back.

“Catar beef,
sah,” said Elias proudly.

“Na fine beef
dis,” I said.

With difficulty
I removed the baby from its mother’s back to have a look at it. It was, unlike
its mother, quite fearless, and sat on the palm of my hand peering at me
myopically out of its small rheumy eyes, exactly like two dull and protuberant
boot buttons. It was about ten inches long from the tip of its long snout to
the tip of its scaly tail, and its back, head, legs and tail were covered with
tiny, overlapping, leaf-shaped scales which, as it was so young, were this pale
pinkish-grey and still soft. His tummy, chin, insides of his legs, and his
sorrowful face were covered with whitish, rather coarse fur, and the underside
of his tail was quite bare. His face was long, and his wet and sticky nose he
kept trying to push between my fingers. The fat little hind paws were neatly
clawed, but the front feet possessed one great curved claw, bordered on each
side by a smaller claw. With these front claws the baby clung to my hand with
incredible strength, and tried to coil his tail round my wrist for extra
safety, but this part of his anatomy had not yet got the strength of the adult,
so that every time he coiled it round, it slipped off. His mother was the same
to look at, except that her scales were hard and chestnut brown in colour, and
the edges were worn and broken, not finished off neatly in three little spikes
as the baby’s were. As far as I could judge, for she resisted unrolling with a
becoming modesty, she must have measured about three feet in length. Curled up
she was the size of a football.

The hunters, of
course, were wildly enthusiastic over this capture: but I was remembering all
that I had read about pangolins, and was inclined to take a gloomy view.
Pangolins are anteaters: they possess no teeth, but a very long, snake-like
tongue and a copious supply of very sticky saliva. With their great front claws
they rip open the ants’ nests, and then their long tongues flick in and out,
and on each return journey there is a layer of ants adhering to it. As is the
case with all animals that have such a restricted diet, they do not take kindly
to a substitute food in captivity, and have so earned the reputation of being
extremely difficult to keep alive. However, they were my first pangolins, and I
was determined that I would not give in without a struggle. I replaced the baby
on its mother’s back, and he clung on with his great front claws stuck in a
crack between two scales, and the tip of his tail hooked into another. Then,
having anchored himself; he put his long nose between his front paws and went
to sleep. We placed them both in a canvas bag and then continued on our way.

An hour’s walk
brought us to the cave that Elias had been so anxious to get me to: a steep
hillside covered with enormous rocks tumbled about its lower slopes, some of
them half buried in the earth, and some almost hidden under a dense growth of
ferns, begonias, and thick moss. Under one of these rocks was an opening some
three feet long and eighteen inches high. Elias pointed at it proudly.

“Na hole, sah,”
he explained.

“Is
this
the cave?” I inquired, inspecting the tiny opening suspiciously.

“Yes, sah. ’E get
small door, but ’e get plenty room for inside. . . . Masa go look with
flashlight?”

“All right,” I
said resignedly.

They cleared
away the undergrowth from the mouth of the cave, and then, lying on my stomach,
I insinuated my head and shoulders into the opening. Sure enough, the interior
of the cave was the size of a small room, and at the far end the floor seemed
to slope steeply down into the depths of the hillside. The air smelt fresh and
cold. The floor of the cave was of solid rock, sprinkled with pure white sand.
I wriggled out again.

“Someone,” I
said firmly, “will have to go inside and hold the torch, then we can follow.” I
surveyed the hunters, none of whom showed any eagerness to volunteer for this
duty. I picked out Daniel as being the smallest.

“You, Daniel,
take the flashlight and go for inside. Andraia and I go follow. . . .”

Both Daniel and
Andraia seemed reluctant.

“Masa,” whined
Daniel, “sometime dere go be beef for inside. . . .”

“Well?”

“Sometime ’e go
catch me. . . .”

“You no be
hunter?” I inquired, frowning severely. “If you be hunter how beef go catch
you? You go catch beef, no be so?”

“I de fear,”
said Daniel simply.

“Elias,” I said,
“go listen if you can hear beef for inside.” Each, in turn, pushed his woolly
head into the hole, and each said that they could not hear anything.

“You see?” I
said to Daniel. “Now you go for inside. No fear, we no go leave you. Andraia
and I go follow you one time.”

With the air of
a martyr approaching the stake, Daniel lowered himself to the ground and
crawled into the hole.

“Now, Andraia,
in you go. . . .”

Andraia’s six
and half feet took some time to get inside, and we could hear him abusing
Daniel roundly, first for sitting right in the entrance (or, from Daniel’s
point of view, the exit), and secondly for shining the torch in his eyes.
Eventually he disappeared from view, and I prepared to follow him. Just as my
head and shoulders were inside a series of loud shrieks burst forth from the
cave, I was hit sharply on the head with the handle of the butterfly net, and
the torch was flashed in my eyes so that I could not see what was happening.