Scott Jonathan - Beastly Journeys : Unusual Tales of Travel With Animals

BEASTLY
JOURNEYS

UNUSUAL TALES OF
TRAVEL WITH ANIMALS

Compiled and edited by
Hilary Bradt and Jennifer Barclay

First published June 2018

Bradt Travel Guides Ltd

IDC House, The Vale, Chalfont St Peter, Bucks SL9 9RZ, England

www.bradtguides.com

Print edition published in the USA by The Globe Pequot Press Inc,

PO Box 480, Guilford, Connecticut 06437-0480

Text copyright 2018 Bradt Travel Guides

Introduction by Hilary Bradt

Edited by Jennifer Barclay and Hilary Bradt

Copy-edited by Ian Smith

Proofread by Adrian Dixon

Cover design: illustration and concept by Neil Gower

Typesetting by Ian Spick

Digital conversion by www.dataworks.co.in

Production managed by Sue Cooper and Jellyfish Print Solutions

Printed in the UK

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior consent of the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to Bradt Travel Guides Ltd in the UK (print and digital editions), or to The Globe Pequot Press Inc in North and South America (print edition only).

ISBN: 978 1 78477 081 5 (print)

e-ISBN: 978 1 78477 545 2 (e-pub)

e-ISBN: 978 1 78477 296 3 (mobi)

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Many thanks to the following: Hodder and Stoughton for permission to use an excerpt from Zoo Quests: The Adventures of a Young Naturalist, David Attenborough (1959) (published by arrangement with the Lutterworth Press); Curtis Brown Group Ltd, London, on behalf of the Estate of Gerald Durrell for permission to use an excerpt from The Whispering Land, Gerald Durrell (1964); Bloomsbury Publishing USA and the Headline Publishing Group for permission to use an excerpt from Zarafa: A Giraffes True Story, from Deep in Africa to the Heart of Paris, Michael Allin (1999); Max Hastings on behalf of the Estate of Michael Joseph for permission to use an excerpt from Charles: The Story of a Friendship, Michael Joseph (1943); Max Press for permission to adapt an excerpt from The Sky is on Fire, Magsie Hamilton Little (2017); Eland Books for permission to use an excerpt from Travels on my Elephant, Mark Shand (1992); and Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. for permission to use an excerpt from Tracks, Robyn Davidson (1980).

Table of Contents

Introduction

Hilary Bradt

M y earliest recollection of travelling with animals was when I was around six years old. Admittedly Id only carried the snails from the bus stop to my primary school in their sealed-in hibernation state (it was winter). But I was summoned from the classroom by the headmistress.

Come with me, Hilary, she boomed, and led me to the cloakroom. There was my navy-blue regulation woollen coat, hanging with those of the other little girls, and all were covered in a network of slimy trails ending in happily exploring snails. The trails radiated out from my coat pocket. The warmth of the cloakroom had felt like the call of spring, and the snails were hungry.

My lifelong love of invertebrates has led to challenges, such as the incident of the cruise ship and the Madagascan hissing cockroach, a species Im particularly fond of, having kept them as pets. I was lecturing on an expedition ship and thought it would be educational for the passengers to see that not all cockroaches are scuttling winged creatures; the ones in Madagascar live in holes in trees, and hiss engagingly if disturbed. But this one escaped in my cabin and I had no choice but to continue with the ship to the Comoros and hope I could capture it before the cleaning staff arrived in the morning. I imagined the entire ship being evacuated for health and safety reasons and losing its licence. Fortunately the cockroach was tempted into a trap I made with fruit secreted from the buffet.

A more successful import from Madagascar was Millicent the giant pill millipede who made it to England disguised as a piece of camera equipment. She lived for over a year in an aquarium, though I must admit she was probably the most boring pet Ive ever kept. Much more interesting at least in the response it elicited from my fellow bus passengers was the Jacksons chameleon that I captured in a park in Nairobi. These little chameleons have three impressive horns at the end of their noses, and I had been looking for one ever since I arrived in east Africa. I popped the little fellow into the only container I had, a brown paper bag, so I could take him back to my hotel for the night to study and photograph. He had other ideas and used his horns to burst through the paper like a miniature circus act and glare around the bus with that down-at-the-mouth expression worn by all chameleons. The result was dramatic. The bus erupted into screams as men rushed for the door and the driver screeched to a stop. Id forgotten the superstitious fear of chameleons shared by many Africans.

The big trip, however, was with an animal universally loved and valued: a pony. My travels with Peggy feature in this collection of stories, along with several others with pack or riding animals. Ever since large animals were domesticated for the purpose of carrying people and their luggage on long journeys, they have accompanied humans on their travels. Its only during the last century that this became a choice rather than a necessity, and the bond between animal and human was recognised as a key part of the journey. Two book extracts highlight the contrast between George Borrow, writing about his horse difficulties in Spain in 1835, and his modern counterpart in Peru, Dervla Murphy, and her love for her mule Juana.

It was the tale of a street dog which attached itself to a traveller to enjoy some food and affection, transforming the visitors experience of the place where they met, that inspired us to begin collecting stories about animals as travel companions. With dogs and cats it is natural to form a bond, but we were surprised by the range of animals that connected with travellers in the stories we read, from a humble sparrow to a giraffe. We were looking not for stories of wildlife-spotting but a journey with an animal, and we hope the collection has something for everyone, from the moving tale of a race against time for an orphaned baby elephant to the farcical story of smuggling a very small tortoise through five international borders.

The animals in these stories are as varied as the journeys, large and small, domestic or wild, compliant or reluctant. All, in their way, made the human journey special and all remind us of the affection that we humans feel for animals.

From Zoo Quest in Paraguay

Sir David Attenborough

In 1954, a young David Attenborough was offered the opportunity to travel the world finding rare animals for London Zoos collection, and to film the expeditions for the BBC.

W hen we had first arrived in Paraguay, I had confirmed that the only practical way of flying a cargo of animals from Asuncin to London was through the United States. It was a long way round, there was the possibility that we might be delayed in making our connections and, as it was now December, we should be faced with the problem of finding heated accommodation for the collection during the time we should have to spend in New York. It was not an ideal route but we believed it to be the only one.