Gerald Durrell - The Drunken Forest

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By Gerald Durrell

My Family and Other Animals

A Zoo in My Luggage

Birds, Beats and Relatives

Garden of the Gods

The Overloaded Ark

The Talking Parcel

The Mockery Bird

The Donkey Rustlers

Catch me A Colobus

Beasts In My Belfry

The New Noah

The Drunken Forest

The Whispering Land

Rosy is My Relative

Two in the Bush

Three Singles to Adventure

The Arks Anniversary

Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons

Menagerie Manor

The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium

The Bafut Beagles

Marrying off Mother and Other Stories

The Aye-Aye And I

Fillets of Plaice

Ark on the Move

Encounters with Animals

The Stationary Ark

For my wife

Jacquie

in memory of Prairie Pigs

and other Bichos

Contents

Explanation

This is an account of a six months trip that my wife and I made to South America in 1954. Our plan was to make a collection of the strange animals and birds found in this part of the world and bring them back alive for zoos in this country. From our point of view the trip was a failure, for, owing to a number of unforeseen circumstances, all our plans were upset. Our trip was to be divided into two parts. First, we were to make our way down to the southernmost tip of the Continent, Tierra del Fuego, to collect ducks and geese for the Severn Wildfowl Trust. On arrival in Buenos Aires we found that it was the holiday season, and all the planes flying south to the Argentine lakes and thence to Tierra del Fuego were booked for months in advance. Shipping was equally difficult. It was impossible for us to reach our destination in time to capture the nestlings, as we had hoped to do, so very reluctantly we called that part of the trip off. Our second plan was to go to Paraguay, spend some weeks collecting there, and then work our way back to Buenos Aires in easy stages by the Parana and Paraguay Rivers. This plan was also thwarted, though in this case the reasons were political. So we returned from South America with only a handful of specimens in place of the large collection we had hoped for. However, even a failure has its lighter side, and this I have tried to portray in this book.

The failure of our trip was in no way due to lack of sympathy or support from people both here and in Argentina, and we owe a very great debt of gratitude to a vast number of individuals. Our thanks will be found in the acknowledgements at the end of the book.

Saludos

As the ship nosed its way into port we leant on the rail and gazed at the panorama of Buenos Aires gradually curving around us. The sky-scrapers reared up under a vivid blue sky like multi-coloured stalagmites, their surfaces pitted with a million flashing windows. We were still staring raptly when the ship had tied up alongside the tree-lined docks, and the enormous buildings loomed over us, sending their shivering, Venetian-blind reflections across the rippling black water. Our meditations on modern architecture were interrupted by a man who looked so extraordinarily like Adolphe Menjou that for a moment I wondered if we had come to the right end of the American continent. Picking his way disdainfully through the gesticulating, yelling, garlic-breathing mob of immigrants that thronged the deck, he arrived in front of us, calm, unhurried, and looking so immaculate that one could hardly believe the temperature was ninety in the shade.

I am Gibbs from the Embassy, he announced, smiling. Ive been looking all over First Class for you; no one told me you were travelling down here.

We didnt know wed be travelling down here until we got on board, I explained, but by then it was too late.

It must have been a rather... er... unusual voyage for you, said Mr Gibbs, glaring at a large Spanish peasant who had expectorated with enthusiasm within an inch of his foot, and rather on the moist side, I should have thought.

I began to like Mr Gibbs tremendously.

This is nothing, I said airily; you should have been here when the weather was rough; it was positively damp then.

Mr Gibbs shuddered delicately.

I should imagine you will be rather glad to get ashore, he said. Everythings in order, and we should have you through the Customs in next to no time.

My liking for Mr Gibbs was reinforced with considerable respect when he sauntered carelessly into the Customs shed, smiling and exchanging a word or two here and there with the officials, suave and unruffled. From his pockets he produced gigantic forms covered in a rash of red seals that whisked our eccentric luggage through the shed and out the other side into a brace of taxis within ten minutes. Then we were whirled through streets that appeared to be as broad as the Amazon, lined with sky-scrapers, trees, and beautifully laid out parks. Within an hour of our arrival we were installed, six floors up, in a lovely flat overlooking the harbour. Mr Gibbs had drifted off to the Embassy, presumably to perform a few more miracles before lunch, and we were left to recover from our voyage. After half an hours training in the intricate art of using the Argentine telephone, we spent a merry hour ringing up all the people we had introductions to and telling them that we had arrived. There were quite a number of these, for my brother had spent some time in Argentina and, displaying a rather cold-blooded indifference to the fate of his friends, had supplied me with their names and addresses. A few days before we had left England a postcard had arrived from him on which was scribbled the cryptic message: In B.A. dont forget to contact Bebita Ferreyra, Calle Posadas 1503, our best friend in Argentina. She is a sweetie. I frequently receive this sort of information from my brother. So, acting on instructions, we phoned Bebita Ferreyra. When she came on the line my first impression was that she had a voice like the coo of a wood-pigeon. Then I decided it was something much more attractive than this: it was the coo of a wood-pigeon with a sense of humour.

Mrs Ferreyra? My name is Gerald Durrell.

Ah, you are Larrys b-b-brother? B-b-ut where are you? Twice I phoned the Customs to find if you had arrived. Can you come to lunch?

Wed love to... Can we get to your place by taxi?

But naturally. Come about one. Good-bye.

She sounds an extraordinary sort of woman, I said to Jacquie as I put down the phone. I had no idea then that I was making the understatement of the century.

At one oclock we were ushered into a large flat in a quiet street. On the tables were strewn a multitude of books on a variety of subjects painting, music, ballet and among them novels and magazines in three languages. The piano was similarly decorated with music ranging from opera to Chopin, and the radiogram was surrounded by records which included Beethoven, Nat King Cole, Sibelius, and Spike Jones. Even Sherlock Holmes, I felt, would have been unable to make a lightning diagnosis of character from these clues. On one wall hung a portrait of an exceptionally lovely woman in a large hat. On the beautiful face was an expression which was at once humorous and calm. It was, in fact, the sort of face that exactly fitted the voice I had heard on the telephone.