Gerald Durrell Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Masa like to
go for bush?”
     
    “I like too
much,” I said firmly. Everyone laughed delightedly at the idea of a white man
liking to go to the bush.
     
    “Masa like to go
again to bush to-night?” asked Elias, his eyes bright with laughter.
     
    “Yes, I fit go
for bush to-night,” I retorted. “I be hunter man, I no be woman.”
     
    A great joke
this, and greeted with a roar of laughter.
     
    “Na true, na
true,” said Elias. “Masa speak true.”
     
    “Masa be proper
man,” said Andraia, simpering at me. I passed the cigarettes round, and we
squatted about the crackling fire, puffing contentedly, discussing this beef
and that, until the dew started to fall heavily. Then we said good night and
picked our way down the village street, redolent with the smell of palm oil,
plantain and cassava — the night meal. Fires glimmered in the interiors of the
huts, and at the doorways sat their owners, calling a soft greeting to us:
     
    “Masa, you done
come?”
     
    “Welcome, Masa,
welcome . . .”
     
    “Good night,
sah!”
     
    I felt that it
was good to be alive.
     

CHAPTER
TWO
     
    SMOKE AND SMALL BEEF
     
     
    BEFORE the news
of my arrival spread through the outlying villages, and every able-bodied man
went to bush to catch animals for this madman who was buying them, and the
trickle of arrivals swelled into a flood that overwhelmed me, I was able to
make a number of trips into the deep forest. The object of most of these trips
was not to catch animals but to find suitable spots for traps, mark hollow
trees for smoking, and generally get a good idea of the surrounding forest.
Unless you get to know the country you are operating in you find it almost
impossible to get the animals you want, for each species has its own little
section of forest, and unless you can discover where this is you stand little
chance of getting specimens. Sometimes, of course, we were lucky enough to
catch animals when we went on one of these expeditions:
     
    one such
occasion stands out in my memory, a day when I went out accompanied only by
Elias.
     
    Andraia, I had
learned, was a hypochondriac of the first order: the slightest pain or fever
would drive him into the dark interior of his hut, to lie there moaning and writhing,
driving his three wives into a panic lest their lord should die. This
particular day he was very bad, and so Elias had promised to come by himself to
accompany me to the bush. I was beginning to wish that I had not arranged to go
out at all, for the afternoon heat seemed more intense than usual. There was no
sound from the collection: the birds sat on their perches, their eyes half
closed, the rats and porcupines sprawled asleep in their banana-leaf beds; even
the energetic monkeys were drowsy and quiet. The boys’ house vibrated with the
combined snores of the staff, and I felt very tempted to join them in slumber.
There was no breeze, the leaves hanging motionless on the trees. The heat had a
dazzling, numbing quality that made you stupid and heavy. Even if you sat quite
still in the shade you could still feel the sweat trickling in streams down
your back and neck. Even if you sprawled in a chair you would soon find that
you were sitting in a damp pool, that your shirt was black with moisture and stuck
to your back and under your arms. With this heat came a heavy brooding silence:
no bird songs, only the faint whisper of the cicada in the trees.
     
    With an effort I
bestirred myself to make the necessary preparations: one haversack was filled
with such things as nets, cloth bags for birds or snakes, cigarettes and
matches. Another smaller bag contained cartridges, a spare box of matches, the
torch, and various test-tubes and jars for the smaller captures such as
spiders, scorpions and their tribe. I had just finished cleaning the gun when
Elias materialized outside the tent. His grinning face was beaded with sweat,
in spite of the fact that he only wore a tiny scrap of dirty cloth twisted
round his