Gerald Durrell - The Bafut Beagles: 2

THE BAFUT BEAGLES

Gerald Durrells adventurous spirit

and his spontaneous gift for

narrative and anecdote mark him

as a rare bird indeed.

In The Bafut Beagles he describes a

collecting expedition to the Cameroons,

where, with the assistance of a pack of

African enthusiasts and mongrel dogs,

he captured almost everything from

flying mice to booming squirrels. The unconscious humour of a supercilious

toad or a hypocritical chimpanzee is

only surpassed by the electric charm of

the convivial Fon of Bafut himself.

There are not many travel books with a more natural sense of humour

PENGUIN BOOKS

THE BAFUT BEAGLES

Gerald Durrell was born in Jamshedpur, India, in 1925. In 1928 his family returned to England and in 1933 they went to live on the Continent. Eventually they settled on the island of Corfu, where they lived until 1939. During this time he made a special study of zoology, and kept a large number of the local wild animals as pets. In 1945 he joined the staff of Whipsnade Park as a student keeper. In 1947 he financed, organized, and led his first animal-collecting expedition to the Cameroons. This was followed by a second expedition in 1948 and a third in 1949, this time to British Guiana. He has also made expeditions to Paraguay, Argentina and Sierra Leone. In 1962 he and his wife went to New Zealand, Australia, and Malaya to film a TV series, Tn>o in the Bush, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Film Unit. In 1958 he founded the Jersey Zoological Park, of which he is the director, and in 1964 he founded the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust. Gerald Durrells other books include My Family and Other Animals, Encounters with Animals, Three Singles to Adventure, A Zoo in My Luggage, The Whispering Land, The Drunken Forest, Menagerie Manor, Birds, Beasts and Relatives, Fillets of Plaice, Catch Me a Colobus, Beasts in My Belfry, The Talking Parcel, The Stationary Ark, Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons, Garden of the Gods, Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium, and, with Lee Durrell, Tie Amateur Naturalist.

3 01SS2 5300

PTA SB/CL

GERALD DURRELL

THE BAFUT BEAGLES

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY

Ralph Thompson

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England Penguin Books USA Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia

Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

First published by Rupert Hart Davis 1954

Published in Penguin Books 1958

27 29 30 28 26

Copyright 1954 by Gerald Durrell All rights reserved

Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St Ives pic Set in Monotype Garamond

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject

to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,

re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers

prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in

which it is published and without a similar condition including this

condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

63<5

O889

STAD53- CITY CCUWCi;.

r

For

KENNETH SMITH

In Memory ofFons, False Teeth, and Flying Mice

CONTENTS

IN WHICH WE DONE COME 9

TOADS AND DANCING MONKEYS 12

THE BAFUT BEAGLES 30

THE SQUIRREL THAT BOOMS 47

HUNT FOR THE HAIRY FROGS 80

SNAKES AND SHILLINGS 94

THE QUE-FONG-GOO 110

THE TYPHLOPS IN DISGUISE

THE FON AND THE GOLDEN CAT I36

ZOO UNDER CANVAS 149

THE FOREST OF FLYING MICE 163

A WILDERNESS OF MONKEYS 185

IN WHICH WE WALKA GOOD 197

1SIF

3 O1552 53OO

636.0889 DUR Durrell Gerald

The Bafut Beagles

R 31.99

:i

In Which We Done Come

The Cross River picks its way down from the mountains of the Cameroons, until it runs sprawling and glittering into the great bowl of forest land around Mamfe. After being all froth, waterfalls, and eager chattering in the mountains, it settles down when it reaches this forest, and runs sedately in its rocky bed, the gently moving waters creating ribs of pure white sand across its width, and washing the mud away from the tree roots, so that they look as though they stand at the edge of the water on a tangled, writhing mass of octopus-like legs. It moves along majestically, its brown waters full of hippo and crocodile, and the warm air above it filled with hawking swallows, blue and orange and white.

Just above Mamfe the river increases its pace slightly, squeezing itself between two high rocky cliffs, cliffs that are worn smooth by the passing waters and wear a tattered antimacassar of undergrowth that hangs down from the forest above; emerging from the gorge it swirls out into a vast egg-shaped basin. A little further along, through an identical gorge, another river empties itself into this same basin, and the waters meet and mix in a skein of tiny currents, whirlpools, and ripples, and then continue onwards as one waterway, leaving, as a result of their marriage, a huge glittering hummock of white sand in the centre of the river, sand that is pockmarked with the footprints of hippo and patterned with chains of bird-tracks. Near this island of sand the forest on the bank gives way to the small grassfield that surrounds the village of

THE BAFUT BEAGLES

Mamfe, and it was here, on the edge of the forest, above the smooth brown river, that we chose to have our base camp.

It took two days of cutting and levelling to get the camp site ready, and on the third day Smith and I stood at the edge of the grassfield watching while thirty sweating, shouting Africans hauled and pulled at what appeared to be the vast, brown, wrinkled carcass of a whale that lay on the freshly turned red earth. Gradually, as this sea of canvas was pulled and pushed, it rose into the air, swelling like an unhealthy looking puffball. Then it seemed to spread out suddenly, leechlike, and turned itself into a marquee of impressive dimensions. When it had thus revealed its identity, there came a full-throated roar, a mixture of astonishment, amazement, and delight, from the crowd of villagers who had come to watch our camp building.

Once the marquee was ready to house us, it took another week of hard work before we were ready to start collecting. Cages had to be erected, ponds dug, various chiefs from nearby villages interviewed and told of the animals we required, food supplies had to be laid on, and a hundred and one other things had to be done. Eventually, when the camp was functioning smoothly, we felt we could start collecting in earnest. We had decided that Smith should stay in Mamfe and keep the base camp going, gleaning what forest fauna he could with the help of the local inhabitants, while I was to travel further inland to the mountains, where the forest gave place to the great grasslands. In this mountain world, with its strange vegetation and cooler climate, a completely different fauna from that of the steamy forest region was to be found.

I was not certain which part of the grasslands would be the best for me to operate in, so I went to the District Officer for advice. I explained my dilemma, and he produced a map of the mountains and together we pored over it. Suddenly he dabbed his forefinger down and glanced at me.

what about Bafut ? he asked.

Is that a good place? What are the people like?

There is only one person you have to worry about in Bafut, and thats the Fon, he said; get him on your side and the people will help you all they can.