Three Singles to Adventure

CHAPTER ONE Snakes and Sakiwinkis

It says much for Ivan's abilities as an organizer that by teatime on the day of our arrival we were installed in a house of our own on the main street of Adventure.

Our abode was a tiny wooden shack, worm-eaten, ant eaten, and only maintaining an upright position with a manifest effort. It was, like all the houses in Guiana , built upon wooden piles, and the interior consisted of three rooms, one to sleep and eat in, one to cook in, and one to keep the animals in. It was set well back from the road and separated from it by a wide, water-filled ditch spanned by a dilapidated wooden bridge. A short flight of steep wooden steps, ending in a small square balcony, led up to the front door. At the back a similar flight of steps led up to the kitchen.

That evening Ivan was in the kitchen performing strange rites that –ere producing a mouth-watering smell of curry, and Bob was in the sleeping quarters manfully trying to tie up three hammocks in a space that was scarcely big enough to hold one. I was sitting outside in the twilight on the top of the rickety wooden steps, books and pictures strewn about me, holding a conference with the local hunters that Ivan had summoned. This preliminary talk with the local inhabitants is a very important part of collecting: by showing them pictures of various animals you want you can learn much about the local fauna, and whether a certain species is rare or common. It also gives you the chance to state the prices you are willing to pay, and then both you and the hunters know where you are. The hunters of Adventure turned out to be a strange and interesting assortment; there were two large negroes, a short, fat Chinaman with the traditional expressionless face, seven or eight slim East Indians with fierce brown eyes and tangled mops of long jet-black hair, and a host of half-castes of varying shades and sizes. The fact that I had not been in the country long enough to get the hang of the local names was proving something of an obstacle.

"Ivan, there's a fellow here who says he can get me a pimpla hog," I would shout, above Bob's muttered profanity among the hammocks and the sizzle of curry.

"What is a pimpla hog, a sort of wild pig?"

"No, sir," Ivan would shout back, "a pimpla hog's a porcupine."

"And what's a kigihee?"

"It's a sort of small animal with a long nose, sir."

"You mean like a mongoose?"

"No, sir, bigger than mongoose, with a very long nose and rings round his tail. He walks with his tail in the air."

"Urrugh!" came a chorus of affirmation from the hunters around me.

"You don't mean a coatimundi, do you?" I would inquire, after due thought.

"Yes, sir, that is the name," Ivan would shout.

And so it went on for two hours. Then Ivan told us that food was ready, and so we dispersed the hunters and went inside.

By the light of the small hurricane lamp the living room looked as though someone had tried, not very successfully to erect a circus marquee. Ropes and cords festooned the room like a giant spider's web; Bob stood forlornly in the centre of the mess, a hammer in one hand, surveying the tangle of hammocks.

"I don't seem to get the hang of these things," he said moodily when he saw me."Look, here's the mosquito net for my hammock, but I'm damned if I see how I'm going to get it on."

"Well, I'm not very sure, but I think it goes over the hammock before you hang it up," I said helpfully.

Leaving Bob to puzzle it out, I went into the kitchen to help Ivan dish out.

We had cleared the table of some of its overhanging undergrowth of hammock ropes and demolished an excellent curry when Mr. Cordai arrived. There was a loud knock at the door, a hoarse voice called out"Good night, good night, good night," and Mr. Cordai staggered in. He was a half-caste with the East Indian blood predominating, a tiny, shrivelled little man with a face like a dyspeptic monkey and legs as bowed as bananas. It became noticeable almost at once that he was very drunk. He lurched over into the circle of lamplight and grinned foolishly at us, enveloping us in a blast of rum-laden breath.

"This is Mr. Cordai, sir," said Ivan, in his cultured voice, looking distinctly embarrassed.

"He is a very good hunter."

"Yes," agreed Mr. Cordai, seizing my hand and wringing it fervently.

"Good night. Chief, good night."

I had learned, by trial and error in Georgetown, that 'good night' was used as a greeting any time after the sun had gone down, and it was a trifle confusing until you got used to it. Mr. Cordai needed little encouragement to sit down and join us in a glass of rum. He stayed for an hour, talking volubly, if not always accurately, about all the animals he had caught in the past and all the animals he was going to catch in the future. Tactfully I led the subject round to a large lake that lay a few miles from Adventure.

Both Bob and I were anxious to visit this lake, to see an Amerindian village that was near it and to see what fauna had congregated round its shores. Mr. Cordai said he knew the lake well. It appeared that he had fought to the death with several snakes of astonishing dimensions in the forest around it and had swum across it on more than one occasion pursued by enraged animals that he had tried to capture. My faith in Mr. Cordai was by now diminishing rapidly. After another glass of rum we arranged that he should call for us the next morning and lead us to the lake. He said it would be a good idea to start about six, as we would get the worst of the walk over before the sun got too hot. So, breathing promises of the various animals we were to capture on the morrow, Mr. Cordai took his leave of us and wandered uncertainly out into the night.

We were up at five the next morning, bustling about getting ready for our trip to the lake. At half past seven Ivan made some more tea and sent a small boy in search of our trusty guide. At eight the small boy returned and said that Mr. Cordai had not returned home last night, and his wife was as anxious as we were to find out where he had got to, though doubtless for different reasons. At ten it became apparent that Mr. Cordai had forgotten our appointment, and so we decided to have a walk round Adventure and see what animals we could find for ourselves.

We crossed the road and made our way through the trees. Soon we came out on to a sandy beach, and before us stretched the Atlantic . I presumed the water would be salt, but I found that we were too close to the mouth of the Essequibo river: the water was fresh, discoloured with yellow mud and shredded leaves brought down from the interior. The sand dunes behind this beach were overgrown with large, straggling bushes and clumps of gnarled trees. These harboured a varied array of reptile life; crawling among the branches of the bushes were great numbers of anolis; small, slim, large eyed lizards, with thin, delicate toes. They were inoffensive and rather helpless creatures; they just scrambled wildly about the bushes and were very easy to capture. The stunted trees were thickly overgrown with long strands of Spanish moss hanging down like big clumps of grey hair, a hundred elderly wigs strung among the leaves.

Between them grew numerous epiphytes and orchids, attached to the rough bark at wild angles, clinging on with their tiny roots. Among all this undergrowth we found a number of tree frogs, delicately patterned with a filigree of ash grey on a dark-green background, a colour scheme that fitted in beautifully with the moss and the orchid leaves.

Across the sand around us scuttled numbers of amevas, like great green rockets, most of them nearly twelve inches long.

For some reason Bob decided that his life would not be complete until he had captured some of these glittering lizards, and so he set off in pursuit of one, uttering wild cries and endeavouring to throw his hat over it. As he disappeared from view I decided that he was employing the wrong technique. I spotted a large ameva basking on the sand some distance away, and I decided to try my own method of capture. I fastened a bit of fine twine to the handle of the butterfly net and made a slip-knot at one end. Then I approached my quarry with extreme caution, while he lay on the hot sand and watched my approach with bright, suspicious eyes. Slowly I dangled my noose until it was just in front of his head. Then I tried to slide it over, but my efforts were thwarted by the grass stalks which kept getting hitched up in the twine. The ameva watched the noose curiously as it trailed back and forth in front of him; he obviously did not connect it with me. In my efforts to get the noose over his head, however, I moved too close, and the lizard shot off across the sand and dived under a large bush.

Just as I was cursing my bad luck and looking round for a fresh victim I heard Bob calling me frantically from among the bushes. I found him crouched on all fours in front of a tangle of undergrowth.

"What's the matter?"

"Shhhhh! Look here, under this bush … a huge teguxin."

I lay down on the sand and peered under the bush; there among the roots lay a great fat lizard about three feet long. Its heavy body was thickly patterned with black and bright-red scales, with a scattering of golden ones on its black tail. It had a wide and obviously capable mouth, and it kept flicking its thick black tongue in and out as it watched us with glittering golden eyes.

"We'd better do something," I suggested.

"He looks as though he's going to try and run for it."

"You stay here," said Bob."I'll go round and try to cut off his retreat, if I can."

He crawled off across the sand, while I lay and watched the lizard. This was the first of many demonstrations I was to have of the tegu's intelligence; craning his neck and twisting his head round, the reptile watched Bob's efforts at circumnavigation with a slightly scornful expression. He waited until my companion had almost reached the far side of the bush, and then he shot off across the sand at great speed, leaving a cloud of dust behind him. Bob leapt to his feet and tore after him, and then flung himself in a peculiar flying tackle just as the tegu gained the sanctuary of another bush and dived underneath. Bob sat up, spitting sand, and peered round to see where the reptile had gone.

Just as I arrived on the scene the tegu appeared on the far side of the bush and started to walk cautiously towards me. I stood quite still, and the reptile, obviously under the impression that I was a sort of decayed tree trunk, walked to within a few feet of me. When he was near enough I emulated Bob's flying tackle, landing with a thump on the sand, one hand firmly grasping the reptile's neck. His immediate reaction was to curl himself up like a hoop and attempt to bite my hand, and he did this so suddenly that he nearly broke my grip. I would never have believed there was so much strength in such a small creature. Finding that he could not break my grip, he brought up his hind legs, armed with great claws, and tried to tear all the flesh off my hand, at the same time lashing about wildly with his tail. It took Bob and me about ten minutes to subdue him and get him into a sack, by which time we were both scratched and bleeding and the wretched beast had lashed me across the face with his tail, which made my eyes water copiously.

It was not until some time afterwards that we realized how lucky we had been to capture this teguxin, for of all the Guiana lizards they are the bravest and most intelligent, and usually they are far too wily to be caught by normal methods. In captivity a few become quite tame and allow you to handle them but most of them remain savage and untrustworthy. Most lizards only bite or attack you if you have got them cornered or if you are trying to pick them up, but the tegus did not need this excuse. They would hurl themselves at you for no reason at all. Later on, in Georgetown , we had twenty or so tegus confined in a large box with a wire front. I went one day to give them fresh water and found them all lying at one end of the cage in a pile, their eyes closed, apparently asleep. I had opened the door of the cage and was just reaching inside for the water-pot when one of the tegus opened his eyes and saw me.

Without a moment's hesitation he launched himself, openmouthed, down the length of the cage and grabbed me by the thumb, hanging on like a bulldog. The noise I made trying to get him off aroused the others, and they also came dashing down to help their comrade. I was forced to remove my hand from the cage, with the tegu still hanging on to it, and to slam the door against the angry horde. Only then could I concentrate on getting the reptile to release my thumb. I have never known any other lizards be so fierce for so little reason. We found that when we put freshly caught tegus in a wire-fronted cage we had to hang sacking over the front, for otherwise if you went near them the lizards would attack the wire, biting and scratching in an effort to get at you.

After being so successful with the tegu, we had another attempt at capturing some of the amevas, using the noose method that I had tried before. With much patience, and many failures, we succeeded in catching six of these lovely reptiles. Their coloration was a mixture of bright grass green, yellow, and black, and they seemed to glow like polished carvings. We had to handle them very carefully for fear they would shed their beautiful long tails, which they do on the slightest provocation. When they were safely packed away in cloth bags we made our way back to our little hut to have a meal and to see if our noble hunter, Mr. Cordai, had turned up.

Cordai was nowhere to be seen, but sitting on the front steps was a young East Indian, and at his feet lay a large sack. On close inspection this sack was seen to move.

"What have you got there?" I asked, peering at it hopefully.

"Cumoodi, Chief," said the boy, grinning, "big water cumoodi."

"What's a water cumoodi?" I asked Ivan, who had just appeared out of the kitchen.

"It's a big snake, sir, like a boa, but it lives in water."

I approached the sack and lifted it up. It was quite heavy, and as I lifted it there came a loud and angry hissing from inside, I undid the mouth and looked in: down in the depths was coiled a large, glistening, and angry anaconda, the aquatic constricting snake about which so many exciting (but probably untrue) stories have been written.

"Look, Bob," I said, thinking my companion would share my pleasure at this new addition, "it's an anaconda. It seems to be quite a nice specimen."

"Um," said Bob unenthusiastically,"I should do the sack up again, if I were you."

For some reason the hunters in Guiana liked to be paid by the foot for any boas or anacondas they caught, and this entailed taking the snake out and measuring it, regardless of what sort of temper it was in. This particular anaconda was in a very bad temper. I did not learn until later that it is very unusual to find an anaconda in anything else but a bad temper; however, at the time I was unaware of this ugly side of their characters. As I was used to handling the more tractable African pythons, I simply plunged my arm into the sack and endeavoured to grasp the snake round the neck. He struck at me viciously but, luckily, missed, while Ivan, the East Indian, and Bob all stared at me as though I was mad.

"Look out, sir, he's a very bad snake," said Ivan.

"He will bite you. Chief," squeaked the East Indian.

"You'll get blood poisoning," said Bob.

But their warnings came too late, for at the second attempt I had grabbed the reptile round the neck and pulled him out of the sack, hissing and squirming. Measured by his owner, he came to five feet six inches, quite a modest length for an anaconda. They have been known to grow to twenty-five feet in length. After paying the East Indian the required sum per foot, Bob and I wrestled with the snake and forced him into one of the heavy sacks we had brought with us for this purpose. Then I doused the sack with a couple of buckets of water and placed it in the room that housed our other specimens.

Some time later I went down the road to the only shop in Adventure to buy some nails, and on returning I was intrigued to see Bob standing on top of the wooden steps leading to the kitchen, clutching a branch in one hand and with a fixed expression on his face. He looked not unlike Horatio at the bridge. I could hear Ivan yelping and muttering to himself inside the house.

"What's going on?" I called cheerfully.

Bob gave me a look of despair.

"Your anaconda's escaped," he said.

"Escaped? But how could it?"

"I don't know how, but it has. It's taken up residence in the kitchen. It seems to like it there."

I climbed up the steps and looked through the

"How are we going to catch it, sir?" he asked. The snake turned and hissed at him, and he disappeared rapidly.

"We'll have to go in and pin him down," I said, in what I hoped was an authoritative tone of voice.

"Have you noticed the temper it's in?" inquired Bob."You can go in and pin it down. I'll cover your retreat."

Finding that I could not inveigle either Bob or Ivan into the kitchen with me, I was forced to go in alone. I armed myself with a long, forked stick and a sack and approached the snake with the sack held out in front of me, rather as a bullfighter approaches a bull. The anaconda gathered itself into a tight rippling bunch and struck at the sack, while I danced about trying to pin it down with my stick. For one brief moment its head was still, and I jabbed at it hopefully, but the snake flung off the stick with an angry wiggle and slid swiftly towards the back door, hissing like a gas jet. Bob, seeing it coming towards him, took an involuntary step backwards, forgetting the steps, and disappeared from view with a crash, closely followed by the snake. When I reached the door Bob was sitting at the bottom of the steps in a puddle of water and the snake was nowhere to be seen.

"Where did it go?"

Bob rose slowly to his feet.

"I couldn't tell you," he said."I was more concerned with finding out if I had broken my neck than watching where your specimen went to."

We searched all around and under the house, but could find no trace of the snake. I discovered that it had escaped by pushing its way through a minute tear in the corner of the sack. At least, the tear must have been small when it started, but now the sack looked as though it had two mouths. As we sat down for tea I delivered a long tirade about the loss of such a nice specimen.

"Never mind," said Bob,"I expect it will turn up in Ivan's hammock tonight, and then he can recapture it for you."

Ivan said nothing, but from the expression on his face I could tell that the idea of finding an anaconda in his hammock did not appeal to him.

Our tea was interrupted by the arrival of a short, fat, and extremely bashful Chinaman carrying under his arm a large and ridiculous bird. It was about the size of a domestic turkey, and clad in sober black feathers, except for a few white ones on the wings. Its head was surmounted by a crest of curly feathers that looked rather like a wind-swept toupe. The beak was short and thick, swollen at the base into a great cere round the nostrils. This beak, together with the heavy, chicken-like feet, was bright canary yellow.

The bird stared at us with a pair of large, dark, soulful eyes that had a mad expression in them.

After a certain amount of bargaining with the Chinaman I bought this curassow, and the owner stooped and placed the bird at our feet. It stood there for a minute blinking its eyes and uttering a soft and plaintive 'peet. peet. peet', a noise that was quite out of keeping with the size and appearance of the bird. I bent down and started to scratch its head, and immediately the curassow closed its eyes and fell flat on the ground, shivering its wings in ecstasy and giving vent to a throaty crooning. Each time I stopped scratching it would open its eyes and regard me with astonishment, peetpeetpeeting in tones of injured entreaty.

When it found that I had no intention of sitting there all afternoon massaging its head, it rose heavily to its feet and approached my legs, still pee ting ridiculously. Slowly and cunningly it crept forward. Then it lay down across my shoes, closed its eyes and started to croon again. Neither Bob nor I had ever met quite such a gentle, stupid, and amiable bird, and we christened it Cuthbert forthwith, as it was the only name we could think of that perfectly fitted its sloppy character.

The Chinaman had assured us that Cuthbert was so tame that he would not wander, so we let him have the run of the house, only shutting him up at night. The first evening, he gave us a sample of what we were to expect. We discovered the wretched bird had a passion for human company; not only that, but he liked to be as near as possible to one. After the Chinaman had departed I started work on the diary, which was sadly behindhand. It was not long before Cuthbert decided he could do with a little attention, so he flew up on to the table with a great clatter of wings. He walked across it slowly, pee ting in pleased tones, and tried to lie across the paper I was writing on. I pushed him away, and he stepped backwards with an expression of injured innocence and upset the ink. While I was mopping this up he proceeded to embellish two pages of the diary with his private seal, which was large and of a clinging consistency. This meant that I had to rewrite two pages. Meanwhile Cuthbert made several cunning attempts to climb into my lap and was vigorously repulsed. Finding the slow approach did not work, he thought about it for a while and then decided the best method would be to take me by surprise, so he tried to fly up on to my shoulder. He missed his mark and fell heavily on to the table, upsetting the ink for the second time. During the whole of this performance he kept up his ridiculous peeting. Finally I lost patience with him and pushed him off the table, so he retreated to a corner of the room and sulked.

Not long afterwards Bob came in to hang up the hammocks, and Cuthbert greeted his arrival with delight. While Bob was absorbed in the job of disentangling the hammocks from their ropes, Cuthbert cautiously approached across the floor and lay down just behind his feet. During the course of his struggles with a hammock Bob stepped backwards and tripped heavily over the recumbent bird behind him. Cuthbert gave a squawk of alarm and retired to his corner again. When he judged that Bob was once more engrossed, he shuffled forward and laid himself across his shoes. The next thing I knew there was a crash, and Bob fell to the floor together with the hammocks. Prom underneath the wreckage of mosquito-nets and ropes Cuthbert peered, peeting indignantly.

"It's all very well for you to laugh," said Bob savagely, "but if you don't remove this disgusting bird you're going to be minus a specimen. I don't mind him making love to me when I've got nothing better to do, but I can't deal with his attentions and hang up hammocks."

So Cuthbert was consigned to the animal room. There I tied him by the leg to one of the cages and left him peering pathetically after me.

That night, as we sat on our front steps smoking and talking, we allowed Cuthbert to come and sit with us. Ivan had news for us; he had been to see the elusive Cordai and discovered that this gentleman had been on a trip to Georgetown . He had now finished his business, however, and was willing to guide us to the lake. He would be calling for us at a very early hour the next morning. Ivan seemed to think that he really would turn up this time, but I was inclined to be sceptical.

The night was warm, and the air resounded with the crinkling noise of the crickets. Presently this noise was increased by a tree-frog in a neighbouring bush, that let forth a series of small, polite belches and then fell silent, as though embarrassed at its own bad taste. But soon it was answered by another of its kind, and it replied shyly. We were just discussing whether we ought to go and catch one of these manner less amphibians, when we saw a group of small lanterns bobbing down the road towards us. When they came opposite to us the crowd turned off the road and crossed our little bridge, their bare feet scuffing on the boards. As they came to a halt at the bottom of the steps I recognized some of the East Indian hunters I had interviewed the night before.

"Good nigh,. Chief," they said in chorus."We have brought animals."

We went into our tiny living-room, and the hunters crowded after us, filling the small space and blocking every door and window. Their faces, bronze in the lamplight, were alight with eagerness to show us their spoils. The first man pushed forward and laid his offering on the table in front of us: an old flour-bag full of creatures that slithered and wiggled.

"Lizards, Chief," he grinned.

I undid the neck of the bag, and immediately an ameva poked its head out and fastened its jaws on my thumb. The house rocked with the hunters' laughter. As I pushed the lovely reptile back into the bag I saw that he was confined with a number of his brethren.

"Here," I said, passing the bag to Bob, "you're the one that likes these things; you count them."

Ivan and I bargained with the man, while Bob, assisted by one of the hunters, carefully counted the lizards. Two got loose and shot off through the forest of brown legs around the table, but they were quickly recaptured.

The next offering was a rather insecure-looking basket containing two jet-black snakes about four feet long. The last six inches of their tails was bright yellow. Bob, obviously with memories of the anaconda, eyed them with considerable distaste. Ivan assured us they were a harmless species, known locally as yellow tails. Carefully we persuaded the reptiles to vacate the basket for a more secure sack, and did so without getting bitten. This was quite a feat, as the snakes were striking wildly at everything they could see. After we had dealt with the yellow tails four huge iguanas were placed on the table.

Their legs had been twisted up over their backs and tied together with string in a most painful and dangerous manner.

I had to explain to the hunters that although this might be the best way to take iguanas to market it was not the way I wanted them brought to me. But the great Lizards did not seem any the worse, probably because they had only been tied up a short time.

Then came the crowning point of the evening. A large wooden box was put before me; I looked through the wooden slats nailed across the top and found it was full of the most delightful little monkeys. They were slim, delicate little creatures clothed in greenish fur, except for the fringe round their faces, which was yellow, and the hair on their big ears, which was white. Their faces were black, and they had light amber eyes. Their little faces peering up at me reminded me irresistibly of a bed of pansies. They had the most extraordinary heads, bulbous and egg-shaped, that seemed almost too big for their slight bodies. They clung together nervously, giving shrill, twittering cries.

"What are they?" asked Bob, who was delighted with them.

"Squirrel monkeys, but I don't know what they call them here."

"Sakiwinkis, Chief," came a chorus from the hunters.

Certainly the name suited them perfectly, and sounded not unlike their twittering cries. There were five of these timid creatures huddled in the box, and it was obviously much too small for them. So, after paying off the hunters, I set to work and built them a larger cage; then I transferred them to their new quarters and put them in the animal room.

Cuthbert meanwhile had been having a wonderful time. With so many feet of different colours in the room, he had found plenty of scope for displaying his affection for the human race, and had prostrated himself in front of nearly every hunter. Now I felt it was long past his natural bedtime, so I put him in the animal room and shut the door. Just as we had turned out the light and crawled gingerly into our hammocks we were startled by the most frightful noise: loud, protesting squawks from Cuthbert, combined with shrill squeaking from the sakiwinkis. I lit the lamp and hurried in to see what had happened I found Cuthbert sitting on the floor looking very disgruntled and pee ting angrily to himself. Apparently he had decided to roost on the top of the sakiwinkis' cage and had flown up there to do so. Unfortunately he had not noticed that his tail dangled down in front of the bars. The monkeys had obviously been intrigued by his tail, which they could see quite clearly in the moonlight, and so they had pushed their small hands out through the bars to find out what it was. In spite of their delicate appearance, sakiwinkis have a grip like a vice, and when Cuthbert had felt them seize his tail he had shot up towards the ceiling like a rocket and left two of his large tail feathers in their hands. I soothed his ruffled feelings, fixed him up a new place to roost on and took the precaution of tying him up so that he could not get near the monkeys again. It was a long time before they stopped discussing the affair in their twittery voices and Cuthbert stopped pee ting and went to sleep. But it was the last time that Cuthbert ever went near the sakiwinkis.