Cameroon with Egbert

by Dervla Murphy

  Our narrow path to the Forbidden Ranch led down a grassy slope, scattered with rotund yellow-blossomed bushes and a variety of trees, most of them unidentifiable since we had been unable to find any guidebooks to the flora and fauna of Cameroon. On the valley floor, beyond several neat compounds, a tiny mud church, filled with roughly made wooden benches, stood isolated amidst dense bush. Here we met two young men, carrying machetes and balancing tall piles of prayer-books on their heads. They stared at us, transfixed, then fled into the bush.

  All around, contrasting colours glowed and shimmered under a deep blue sky: richly red new-dug fields, glossy banana and plantain groves, mighty mango trees, coppices of young burgundy-tinted eucalyptus, flowering bushes – red, white, orange – long tawny grass on the slopes, short bright green grass by the streams.

  Each turn of the path revealed a new combination of topography and vegetation. As Rachel observed, there is a miniature quality about this corner of Cameroon. She of course was looking at it with the eyes of one recently returned from trekking in the Himalayas, but I could see her point – though Cameroon’s mountains don’t feel miniature while one is ascending or descending.

  At noon clouds piled up in the west. We lunched on a high ridge under a solitary, towering, gnarled tree; its visible root system extended for many yards and housed many ants. The grass was meagre and tough yet not despised by Egbert who rolled ecstatically when the load came off. Picketing him, I discovered that a picket well suited to damp Ireland is less suited to Africa at the end of the dry season. Meanwhile Rachel had been discovering that Cameroon’s large black ants, though omnipresent and hyperactive, do not bite unless molested. (Driver ants are another and later story.)

  The rain came as we reloaded: gentle steady rain, not a tropical downpour. The landscape ahead differed dramatically from the shallow fertile valleys behind us. Tall clumps of rough grass covered an expanse of apparently uninhabited hills, broken by frequent outcrops of volcanic rock. As we descended towards a tree-filled cleft the rain became a chilling deluge, driven by a strong cold wind.

  ‘This is no one’s idea of trekking in West Africa,’ commented Rachel. Then she wondered, ‘Are we on the right track?’ – because the cleft presented an Egbert-barrier.

  The foot-bridge over a tumultuous mountain stream consisted of two wobbly eucalyptus poles; I didn’t much fancy it myself. We sought an animal ford, but there was none. Then I examined more closely the banks beside the bridge. Both looked negotiable by an agile horse and the water was only about six feet wide and two feet deep. A ford could be created by the clearing of some vegetation – an easy task, if one had a machete, though with bare hands it took fifteen rather painful minutes. And after all that Egbert refused to approach the noisy torrent. Had we continued patiently to persuade him he would certainly have crossed; later he took on many more alarming obstacles. But we were then ignorant of his prowess and reluctant to nip a beautiful friendship in the bud by being too insistent.

  The sun returned as we climbed a steep grassy hill. Then a broader path appeared; it proved to be the right one and led to a two-hut Fulani compound where a strong-featured woman – high cheek-bones, slightly hooked nose, square chin – slowly approached and formally greeted us. She refused however to shake hands with me; virtuous Muslim wives don’t shake hands with men and 90 per cent of rural Cameroonians mistook my gender. Evidently she assumed us to be connected with the Forbidden Ranch. Pointing through a pathless tangle of tall trees she said, ‘Fence! Fence!’

  As we continued, somewhat hesitantly, two little girls came running after us, doubtless instructed by Mamma. They were enchanting, with the sort of gracious good manners and dignified friendliness that we were coming to recognise as Fulani traits. The elder insisted on leading Egbert, the younger took the empty bucket from me and placed it on her head. (I had been carrying it since the handle broke.)

  Beyond the trees we crossed an unpleasant acrid-smelling area of burnt scrub, descended to a swift shallow river – the girls observed our white feet with interest – and ascended a jungly slope to a wide, brilliantly green plateau encircled by forest. Here our guides pointed to a large Fulani compound of thatched huts, then smiled goodbye and raced away.

  Outside the compound three men in long robes and embroidered pill-box hats were talking animatedly. As we approached they fell silent and stared at us with, I sensed, some unease. If we were being associated with The Fence we could scarcely expect warm welcomes hereabouts. They were however civil, though distant. One indicated an almost invisible pathlet on the green turf and said, ‘Go to gate.’ Then abruptly they all turned away.

  On the edge of that plateau we suddenly found ourselves directly overlooking a volcanic crater, some two miles in circumference, with a smooth pale green floor fringed by dense forest. Here we rested, eating bananas while peering – awestruck – over the 500-foot crater wall. Several tree tops were swaying far below and we heard for the first time those half-eerie, half-comic monkey calls which were to become so familiar.

  Continuing through woodland grievously vandalised by fire – hundreds of fine trees had been destroyed – we were impressed by Egbert’s jumping, without encouragement, four mighty obstructing trunks. Then a rider emerged from the shadows ahead, followed by an unsaddled horse. ‘It’s Danieli!’ exclaimed Rachel. ‘Egbert must know this path well!’ When we paused to shake hands Danieli congratulated us on the load’s being still in place.

  Next came the day’s toughest climb. Strangely rutted volcanic soil made for exhausting walking up a brutal gradient closely covered with small grey scratchy bushes. Near the top we heard a distant shout; Danieli was urging his sweat-flecked horse up the slope to give us the name of ‘the man with the key’. When Rachel had written it down phonetically he cantered away and we stood watching. To me the partnership of a Fulani and his horse is more beautiful than any ballet. Danieli rode downhill with one arm outstretched for balance, his wide blue sleeve flowing in the breeze. At the edge of the burnt wood he paused, looked up at us, pirouetted his horse in farewell and disappeared beneath the trees.

  ‘They’re such kind people!’ said Rachel. ‘But it’s one thing to have this man’s name – how do we find him?’

  Below that crest lay many miles of rough pasture and woodland – a jumble of long ridges set at eccentric angles to one another and divided by shallow valleys. No compounds were visible but soon we heard maize being pounded and around the next corner saw yet another beautiful young woman in an unfenced two-hut compound. Like most Fulanis she spoke no English or French but was an excellent sign-linguist. The Fence was over that way, the gate was down that way, the man with the key lived up that way. We were moving off when she signalled us to wait, hurried to cover her maize from marauding hens, adjusted her baby-blanket (the huge infant was sound asleep) and beckoned us to follow her. She too insisted on leading Egbert and carrying the bucket.

  For a mile or so we were guided across scrubby grassland, liberally fertilised by old cow-pats and horse droppings. In all this area there was no trace of a path. Then the barbed-wire fence appeared – an odious sight, some eight feet high and constructed with non-local thoroughness. To defy it without a wire-cutter would be impossible. Our guide pointed to a spot on a distant hillside and made a key-turning movement. Staring hard, we could see a compound; then my binoculars revealed scores of cattle nearby. But this compound was on the far side of The Fence, from which we deduced that the as yet invisible gate was not person-proof but that Egbert would have to wait while one of us fetched the key.

  When our friend left us only forty minutes of daylight remained. To Rachel’s eyes the key compound looked easily accessible before sunset; to my older and (in this case) wiser eyes it didn’t. From where we stood, on a level with it, it seemed close enough; but much of the intervening terrain was down and up.

  ‘Let’s find a camp-site,’ said I, in the no-nonsense voice so often used before my daughter became an adult. (Such habits are not easil
y dropped.) Rachel obviously had her heart – or stomach – fixed on compound fufu; yet she gave in gracefully, perhaps also out of habit.

  Soon a level woodland glade offered ample grazing, ample firewood and soft ground for the picket. We dithered about putting up the tent; the sky was indecisive, mostly clear but with cloud around the edges. Recalling the previous night’s downpour, we chose to play for dryness rather than comfort. The tent was a veteran of our Andean campaign, a high-altitude one-(wo)man job weighing three pounds including poles. In Peru Rachel had of course been less than half her adult size, but we had parsimoniously decided that our old friend would be tolerable for a trek during which we did not expect to camp every night.

  Our fire caused a mild personality clash. The wood, being surface-wet, was slow to light – with damp grass as a starter – and Rachel impatiently accused me of ‘wasting matches on a doomed enterprise’. I however was trebly motivated: by hunger for dehydrated vegetable stew, by a romantic addiction to camp-fires and by pride in my ability to light one under adverse conditions. Sure enough, a tiny glow at last appeared and after much skilful blowing became a tiny flame – and moments later a dance of many big flames.

  Complacently I settled the saucepan on three logs (there were no adequate stones around) and opened the stew packet. As we supped a gusty wind blew smoke into our faces wherever we sat. Between coughs Rachel wiped her watering eyes and said, ‘Some people know about camp-stoves – very light and cheap.’

  When the wind dropped after dark we piled on more wood and discussed our dash dilemma. (In Cameroon ‘dash’ is used loosely to mean a rewarding tip as well as a softening-up bribe.) Should we have dashed Danieli when he followed us? Should we have dashed our guides, in either or both cases? I thought not; money is a dangerous substance that quickly corrodes human relationships unless handled with care. The modern practice of parents (or other relatives) paying young children for help in everyday tasks is to me abhorrent. And everyone knows what the economics of mass tourism have done to human relationships world-wide. Clearly the two little girls, who so rapidly left us, expected no tip. They might have been gratified to receive one; but then, in the unlikely event of other Whites straying past their compound, would the prospect of dash have insidiously tainted the atmosphere? It is reviving, for us denizens of an evilly materialistic society, to be among people who offer help simply because they have generous hearts.

  Rachel didn’t entirely agree with me. Some temperaments find it harder to receive than to give and she had been quite upset when our guide with the heavy baby left her urgent chore (pounding maize for the evening meal) and walked far from her compound to show us The Fence. I admired this scrupulousness about not being a nuisance, not taking advantage of people’s good nature. Yet it would have been inappropriate (quite apart from my personal inhibition) to dash that dignified young woman with money. But should we have given her one of our standard cheap ‘travellers’ gifts’ – a lipstick, or gaudy hair-slide, or card of safety-pins? That ploy uncomfortably recalls European traders bartering almost worthless (to them) coloured beads for gold, ivory and slaves. Yet those beads were not worthless to the Africans; many are still in use as admired and envied necklaces. So is it wrong to allow White hang-ups to deprive Black villagers of baubles they would prize? Before ‘settling in’ to Cameroon, I took this and related questions seriously. But such soul-searching about inter-racial attitudes or motives soon came to seem superfluous. One couldn’t go far wrong by spontaneously responding to the differing expectations and personalities of individual villagers.

  Although dashing one’s host is a clear-cut obligation, the manner of fulfilling it may be far from clear-cut. In rural Cameroon, and I believe elsewhere in West Africa, a sponger could live well, indefinitely, by accepting the hospitality traditionally offered to strangers of every colour. He or she would be given the best available food and shelter without any hint that recompense was expected. Even nowadays a few hosts – usually Fulanis – are offended by dash from a departing guest. Others consider a gift, but not cash, acceptable; the majority welcome any form of dash that may be received without loss of face. A useful ruse for us, we had been advised, was to pay on departure for ‘the horse’s food’ – which of course costs nothing.

  We left the tent flap wide open; at 6,000 feet there were no mosquitoes or other winged undesirables. Rachel was soon asleep, I lay watching a half-moon glimmering behind a frieze of big-leaved branches. Bird chirrupings and distant monkey yells and Egbert’s munching wove a pleasing pattern on the deep silence of the bush. It seemed rather a waste to become unconscious when being conscious was so enjoyable.

  In fact that night’s unconsciousness was productive. In a dream I recalled something that for years had been totally forgotten: the loading technique taught me in 1975 by a Balti trader. Then our luggage also consisted of two sacks and the trader’s method of roping them together before loading was, once mastered, far simpler than my own convolution of knots.

  At sunrise Rachel watched incredulously while I tied complex loops at intervals along the rope, then arranged it on the ground in a meticulously measured esoteric-looking design. ‘Seems to me,’ she said, ‘your brain works better when you’re asleep!’

  By 7.15 a.m. we were viewing The Gate, an anticlimactic arrangement of wooden poles not at all in keeping with that Iron Curtain-type fence. Two small padlocks secured it but anyone keen to get stock through could have done so quite easily. Nor did it even pretend to be human-proof; leaving Egbert grazing and Rachel reading, I wriggled under without difficulty.

  That was a magical walk – the early sky pale blue, the cool air faintly herb-scented, the forested slopes vibrant with bird-calls. And then, as I crossed a red-brown meadow, the still hidden sun filled the valley with an ethereal golden haze, an almost unbearably beautiful light.

  After a short climb up a new-burnt ridge I found myself amidst some two hundred ear-tagged cattle, the ranch’s experimental herd of zebu-Holstein half-breeds. In March all Cameroonian cattle look skinny, but they do not look unhealthy. This lot did. Some were lame, some had suppurating udders, some had oozing sores around their eyes, all were listless with starey coats. I began to understand why the ranch was forbidden to visitors.

  Danieli’s friend came to greet me, a tall, lithe, elderly man who had evidently been expecting us. He held my hand tightly, smiling down at me and murmuring the Fulani litany of greetings, to which I murmured incoherent responses. His face was sad; to the Fulanis a herd of healthy cattle is the most important thing in the world. Strong emotions often transcend language barriers and Rahim must have picked up my own distress; gesturing towards those wretched animals, all overcrowded on their dusty ridge-top, he conveyed that they were starving and looked as though he were about to cry.

  In a tiny windowless hut I sat on an unsteady bed covered with a straw mat. The only other furniture was a crudely made wooden cupboard on which stood a row of brightly patterned enamel bowls. Uncovering one, Rahim presented me with a litre of warm, foamy milk. When I hesitated he said, ‘Plenty! Plenty!’ and pointed through the doorway. His pitiably kyphotic wife had just finished milking three healthy zebu – presumably Rahim’s own – and was hobbling across the tree-shaded compound carrying another bowl.

  Among the Fulani’s many agreeable customs is an eagerness – almost a compulsion – to provide passing strangers with as much milk as they can drink. In theory (the sort of theory that makes total sense as one studies Hints for Tropical Travellers, pre-journey) one should politely decline this potentially lethal liquid and go ascetically on one’s way. In practice however trekkers see fresh milk not as a health hazard but as the best possible fuel for the day ahead. When I had emptied the bowl Rahim gave me two tiny padlock keys, tied to a grubby, illegible label, and reminded me that my daughter must also have milk.

  By 9.30 a.m. Rachel had emptied her bowl and Rahim was showing us the wide track to Ranch Headquarters. Not far from his compound stood a baffling tw
o-storey cattle-trailer of the type associated with intercontinental trucking. Judging by the invading vegetation it had been idle for some time – but how had it got here? Then we realised that this was a motorable track, comparatively recently bulldozed through the bush.

  We walked parallel to a long, low, rocky ridge, nearby on our right, with miles of flat stony scrubland stretching away on our left. Even after the rains this would provide poor grazing; now the red earth was naked and cracked between brownish-green bushes.

  Where the ridge ended the track swung right and dropped abruptly to well watered green pastureland, amply shaded by tall spreading trees and close cropped by hundreds of sheep and goats – none as yet cross-bred and all in good condition. Very far below lay an immense expanse of cultivated land with Mount Ocu conspicuous beyond.

  ‘We’ve got our timing badly wrong,’ I observed. ‘We’ll hit that hot spot during the afternoon.’

  Soon after the track divided, one branch continuing down, the other climbing towards a jagged escarpment. ‘Let’s go up!’ I urged.

  ‘And eat what?’ enquired Rachel. ‘More instant stew? How many miles are we supposed to walk on tiny packets of dehydrated vegetables?’

  I consulted the USAF and suggested, ‘That up track could be the right one. We don’t know we must go down to get to Mount Ocu. The map only says it’s 9,879 feet high.’

  At that moment we noticed the shepherd, a tall skinny youth lurking nervously behind a tree. In response to my greeting he took refuge in a hut amongst bushes. When I followed and peered through the doorway he joined his hands together, as though in prayer, and whispered something inaudible. It took time to reassure him. Then he emerged and conveyed that the upward track went nowhere.

  ‘Good!’ said Rachel.

  That descent was spectacular: from about 7,000 to 3,000 feet in a few memorable miles. We were still quite high when a Range Rover appeared some fifty yards ahead. It had of necessity been travelling slowly (this track was only just motorable) and it went even more slowly when the occupants observed the Murphies on the march. Then it stopped. A small, stout, sallow Frenchman was driving. His companion – also small and stout but very black – wore a fawn lounge suit, an Edwardian solar topi, several gold rings and a pompous angry expression. Neither man spoke English. The driver asked, with a snarl in his voice, how and where we had entered the ranch. The man from Yaounde (for such he must surely have been) accused us of trespassing on private property.