Cameroon with Egbert

by Dervla Murphy

  ‘There must be water quite close,’ said I knowingly, ‘because of the baboons.’

  ‘Like where?’ challenged Rachel. ‘A trickle ten miles away at the bottom of some ghastly chasm! Anyway they probably get their liquid from fruit and things.’

  ‘What fruit?’ I demanded, gazing around at the universal infertile dessication.

  ‘If we’re not careful,’ said Rachel, ‘we’ll quarrel again.’

  At 12.10 p.m., crazed by flies and angst-ridden about Egbert, we recklessly continued and came to a shrunken river before climbing the next – shadeless – ridge. Half-way up I came over all queer.

  ‘Are you going to fall ill?’ asked Rachel accusingly.

  ‘I am ill!’ I replied, surrendering to a tidal wave of self-pity. ‘The sun is splitting my head and I’ve heatstroke dizziness and I want to lie down and die!’

  ‘You might as well go on and die,’ advised Rachel sensibly. ‘There’s no point in lying down here.’ She looked towards the top of the ridge. ‘Trees,’ she said. ‘Keep going! I wonder why you’re so feeble about heat?’

  ‘I’m just made that way,’ I said sadly, tottering on. ‘But I’m unfeeble about cold – d’you remember those midwinter nights in Baltistan at minus forty degrees?’

  ‘No,’ said Rachel, ‘I don’t remember them. You must have wrapped me up well.’

  The trees hid quite a large compound where an authoritative man ordered a minion to guide us to his brother’s compound, close to the N’gaoundere-Tignere motor-road. That path zig-zagged so unpredictably that without guidance we might have spent four days, instead of four hours, finding the road. Walking through two bush-fires, we were fascinated by Egbert’s indifference to asphyxiating clouds of smoke and little flames licking around his hoofs. Equally fascinating was our barefooted guide’s indifference to acres of glowing ash.

  We felt somewhat ill-at-ease about sorning on that quarterchief’s spacious compound and at first the atmosphere did seem slightly strained; but within an hour everyone had relaxed. This was an unhealthy though apparently rich family. Our host had malaria, his senior wife had TB – rather badly – and several other relatives brought jungle-sores, stomach-pains and toothaches to the guest hut. When we left before dawn no one was around to receive dash but we soothed our consciences by recalling the numbers of ‘cures’ and placebos (glucose tablets) already dispensed.

  An hour later our path joined the N’gaoundere-Tignere road, on which there is no motor traffic during the night and not much during the day. But the nocturnal animal traffic is heavy; in the thick red dust we counted the clear hoof- or pad-marks of eight different species. I relished walking through that still grey morning on a motor-road which is also an animal highway.

  Seeing a milk-bar some way off the road, I dusted out Egbert’s bucket – not hoping for more than a pint since the drought was drastically lowering yields. But a kind man half-filled the bucket and we had three pints each. Thus sustained we continued non-stop, soon finding a jungly cut-short, lively with warthogs, that got us to Tignere by 11.45 a.m.

  Opposite Le Metro, kebabs were sizzling over a tar-barrel; having walked fifteen miles on milk only, we recklessly bought four. Tropical health experts recommend fresh-cooked kebabs as relatively ‘safe’ but here we learned that Cameroonian kebabs demand scrutiny before purchase. These specimens consisted of offal which our cats would spurn even if starving. Gobbets of lights, tail gristle, rubbery intestines and heart valves were interspersed with chunks of green-black tripe, hairy strips of hide and slivers of ear. We gave three of the four to local dogs who wouldn’t eat them.

  In the Faro bar Gabriel greeted us rapturously, flinging his arms around my neck, kissing me repeatedly and exclaiming, ‘Mamma! Mamma! My White Mamma come back!’ During our absence no rain had fallen and Tignere’s water shortage had become a crisis. The stench of the hotel latrine suggested some form of biochemical warfare and the heat (day and night) was almost unendurable.

  All our friends advised against continuing to N’gaoundere. Apart from the delayed rains, there was that little matter – hitherto unconsidered by us – of lions. The Tourist Officer, with whom we shared a few ‘33’s’ at Le Metro, had indeed been lion-hunting with Spaniards in the mountains between Tignere and N’gaoundere. For years, he explained, no permits to shoot lions had been issued. Then in 1986 the rule was changed; a leonine population explosion had provoked angry complaints from villagers who were losing many cattle. So now a foreigner could kill a maximum of two male adult lions per day on payment of 45,000 CFA (£100) – plus of course two scarce 300 CFA fiscal stamps to be affixed to two of the four documents to be tendered with the application form for a licence … I recollected an amusing sketch, in John Hatt’s The Tropical Traveller, of a headless corpse protruding from a tent in lion country. The comic element in that sketch dwindled as I listened to the Tourist Officer. One way and another, it seemed rather a good idea to return to the cool Grassfields.

  Later, as we lay sweating in our room, Rachel said sardonically, ‘You’re letting down your fans – they like to imagine you’re brave. They’ll hate to hear about your scooting away in panic at the first rumour of a possible lion.’

  I squeezed more ineffectual mosquito-repellent onto my torso and replied, ‘I always like to keep my head.’

  We slept restlessly. Our oven could not be ventilated without admitting mosquito reinforcements, yet the closed door and window failed to exclude poison-gas fumes from the latrine and mysterious, incessant lawn-mower noises from the next room. (At dawn I saw our neighbour putting a gigantic mobile electric fan, circa 1920, into the back of his pick-up truck.) At intervals women came and went and loud disputes about payment were frequent. The electric light switch was broken and the naked bulb directly above the bed, though only twenty-five-watt, did not promote sleep. I yearned for our silent, sweet-smelling resting place on the stony track, then consoled myself with the thought that we were scarcely two days’ march from Paradise.

  Our enthusiasm for the Tchabal Mbabo baffled all our Cameroonian friends. None would even consider visiting the range, which they envisaged as a place so high and cold that the water sometimes turned to glass … A lonely place, made perilous by swirling mists, yawning chasms, wild animals and even wilder people. A discordant place, where the spirits were uneasy and not all the dangers natural … Here as elsewhere, powerful spirits inhabit the highest local mountains.

  By the following evening we were encamped not far from Tourak; Mohammed Mechanic had invited us to stay with him on our return but we shirked another night under a tin roof. He was surprised, next morning, to see us back so soon. ‘Did you have a water problem? Here it is very bad! Now the rains are six weeks late!’

  Our guide was summoned then: Jeremiah, an aptly named Man from Bamenda who regularly traded in the Tchabal Mbabo ‘curing people because they have no hospitals up there’. His trade no doubt explained why so many mountain dwellers had tried to buy medicines from us.

  ‘Where do you get your stocks?’ I asked.

  ‘For me no problem!’ said Jeremiah. ‘Plenty friends work in hospitals, work in drugstores, work for doctors. Getting the antibiotics, pills, tonics, creams, needles – all is easy! Then I do some blending. I wish to be doctor, but there is no money for study.’

  I pictured Jeremiah blending tonics and antibiotics before giving an injection with a dirty needle – by what percentage has his enterprise reduced the population of the Tchabal Mbabo? He was a tiresome young man, yet pathetic. Leading us towards the escarpment he denigrated Cameroon. ‘This is a bad, poor, backward country. I would like to be born an American man, Americans are all rich men. When you are rich you can have everything, you can be happy. In this country I can never be rich, never be happy …’

  From the crest of a long cultivated ridge Jeremiah pointed to our path, at the base of the mighty mountain wall. Although he accepted his dash with a delighted grin, it clearly surprised him; for all his mercenary talk, he had h
elped us out of sheer goodwill.

  That climb, much of it on a boulder-stairway, recalled certain Nepalese paths and poor Egbert found it gruelling; for long stretches he had to proceed in a series of jumps. The cool, damp forest was creeper-draped and fern-laden; waterfalls flashed down precipices and several clear streams ran across the path. Yet we were only two days’ walk from the parched desolation of the Tchabal Gangdaba.

  Half-way up a young Fulani woman joined us – slim, muscular, carrying baby on back and several litres of kerosene on head. Her frail son, aged five or six, looked dejectedly exhausted until I gave him a few glucose tablets. Mother had huge sad eyes and a very lovely face too lined for her age. When suddenly we emerged from the still, twilit forest onto bright, windswept grassland our companions turned right and we stopped, for Egbert’s sake.

  Now our aesthetic appreciation of these mountains was enhanced by the physical relief of having escaped into ‘good Irish weather’. The following days reminded us of Indian Summers at home – brilliantly sunny, with cool breezes and chilly evenings.

  That evening’s campsite was so beautiful we imagined (wrongly) it could never be surpassed. All day we had been climbing, sometimes steeply, and by sunset we were on a broad saddle at about 7,000 feet, surrounded by irregular green summits and overlooking a narrow valley with sheer sides. It was so deep that the three gold-thatched compounds on its grassy floor, each built on a separate hillock, seemed like a view from an aeroplane. Nearby was a convenient burnt copse where we gathered charcoal, while away to the west, above a long band of clear blue-green, the sky became a softly glowing expanse of apricot cloud.

  At dusk two shepherds came to greet us, a youth and an older man. They had been rounding up their flock on a distant slope and made a detour to invite us to their compound. But by then our fire was alight, our noodles were simmering, our bags were spread on the close-cropped grass. Understanding that for us all was well, they smiled and bowed graciously, called on Allah to bless us and turned back to their sheep. The older man had one of those unforgettable Fulani faces, fine boned and austere, which vividly reminded me of the Amharas. ‘Handsome’ is the usual adjective for such a male face; but ‘beautiful’ (which we so curiously reserve for females) seems more appropriate.

  Eating our noodles and sardines, we discussed faces, features, expressions: would that shepherd, should he be unwise enough to migrate to Douala or Yaounde, look the same after a year’s rat-racing? How much of his outward beauty had to do with inner content? We could guess what his compound had to offer – not much, in European terms. But his life was completely under his own control and to that extent unstressful and satisfying. He was not dependent on any Big Man, or on an erratic urban labour market, or on internationally fixed prices for cash-crops. True, he was alarmingly dependent on the machinations of someone like Jeremiah should he or any of his family fall ill. Yet in compensation he was his own man, beyond reach of the countless complications devised by modern states to regulate society. And you don’t see too many faces like his in ‘regulated societies’.

  Despite the sunset clouds there was, alas! no need to sleep in. We lay watching a grass-fire on the opposite mountain, a blaze without any of the scarey pyrotechnics of bush or jungle conflagrations. It never increased in area but moved across the slope like some gigantic sinuous crimson reptile. Then came an extravaganza of silent blue and white sheet lightning, wide and dazzling over the summits to the east. ‘It’s like a disco!’ said Rachel unromantically, dozing off. On me this display had an almost hypnotic effect. It continued for over an hour; then I too slept, very deeply, until dawn.

  The Tchabal Mbabo’s milk-bars more than make up for the lack of ‘33’. Every morning, in all but the wildest regions, we passed at least one isolated compound – or herd’s hut in a corral, where cows were being milked, or had recently been milked. It was necessary to be circumspect in our approach; both humans and animals were likely to be discombobulated when we appeared. On one remote over-grazed mountain an adolescent boy was in charge of some twenty skinny cattle. He slept in a hut indistinguishable from a small haystack and when he saw me crouching in the entrance his arms instinctively went up to cover his face and he whimpered with fear. But once the shock had worn off he gladly provided milk and would indeed have given us his entire supply had I not firmly restrained him. I placed 100 CFA in the empty gourd and we left him scrutinising the coin, looking bewildered.

  Those were joyous mornings – sitting in warm sun on grassy slopes, surrounded by clouds of cattle-flies, gratefully relishing our gourds of foaming milk as no nourishment absorbed in Europe can ever be relished. And admiring, meanwhile, the extraordinary skill and courage with which tiny children assist their parents in the complicated ritual of milking. Calves cause most of the complications. Having spent the night apart from Mamma – otherwise there wouldn’t be any morning milk – each is allowed a few pulls to stimulate the flow before the milker takes over. Naturally the hungry young resent this system and sometimes register vigorous protests. Moreover, some cows try not to let their milk down when a calf’s avid suckling is replaced by a pair of hands. Thus the human-bovine relationship can become quite fraught and small children are often required to hold frustrated calves in such a position that Mamma cannot be sure who is getting at her teats. Both girls and boys are given this sometimes hazardous task.

  Older boys are entrusted with the considerable responsibility of de-ticking cattle. It is impressive to witness two youngsters, aged perhaps twelve or thirteen, roping the hind legs of a colossal bull, deftly throwing him on his side and holding him immobile while scores of potentially deadly ticks are picked off and crushed between stones.

  Because Cameroonian bulls lead normal lives they are as amiable – and almost as numerous – as their wives, mothers, sisters and daughters. Meeting them face-to-face on narrow mountain paths there is no need to panic. The Fulanis are so close to their cattle that men who own hundreds know them all by name. Therefore even the most macho-looking bull – weighing well over a ton, with sharp five-foot horns – is desperately anxious to please; however awkward the topography, he will make way for human travellers. These Zebu are worth, on average, about 90,000 CFA (£200) each. Many simple compound-dwellers own 18 million CFA (£40,000) on the hoof, though naturally they don’t think of their beloved herds in such demeaning terms. As so many non-Fulanis complained to us, they will only occasionally sell a few bulls to a Hausa butcher when cash is needed for some exceptional expenditure – perhaps to pay a hospital bill, or build a new hut.

  One midday we approached a rocky summit, intending to lunch there; by then ‘siesta’ had dropped out of our vocabulary. All morning we had been climbing to reach this highest point in the Tchabal Mbabo. Many cattle were grazing on the wide slope, then faintly we heard sweet music. A solitary youth stood on a rock on the summit, playing his bamboo flute – silhouetted against the sky, his short gown fluttering in the breeze. He was gazing away from us and we paused, enchanted, to listen. Then he turned – saw us – and leaped off the rock to seize his long stick. We waved reassuringly (or so we hoped) before continuing upwards, expecting to see more grassland ahead – and perhaps another series of the region’s slightly phallic peaks.

  Instead, we found ourselves on the north-west brink of the range, looking straight down on dense forest 3,000 feet below. This was the most astounding visual experience of the entire trek. We soon discovered that the Mbabo escarpment here forms a twenty-five-mile semicircle; and below the rock-wall eleven profound ravines – extending for miles from the base of the escarpment and separated by other, naked chasms – retain their primeval vegetation. This forest is untouched and untouchable, protected by the terrain from all intruders. I felt an overwhelming sense of reverence and privilege as we gazed down into those rare and precious vestiges of the world as it was before man.

  We tried to trek close to the escarpment but, though our path repeatedly approached it, to follow it was physically impossible
. And the harmattan was still thwarting us; to the north, beyond the ravines, grey blurred hills faded rapidly into blankness.

  That afternoon we camped early, tempted on Egbert’s behalf by lush grazing in a hidden ‘bowl-valley’ enclosed by steep green slopes. This site had an almost fairytale feel; it was the sort of place small children imagine when they long to escape from the tiresome adult world. A deep cold stream flowed through it but, oddly, none of the local vegetation burnt well. Luckily dried cow-pats were plentiful and after some effort I got a dung-fire going – smoky, acrid and slow. By sunset we were enjoying soup and noodles and several mugs of heavily sugared Bournvita.

  The next day was notable for a shortage of people, a superabundance of wildlife and an even more varied than usual terrain. The many climbs were formidable, often on narrow tricky paths above dizzying drops. At this stage we were, we hoped, making our way back to Makelele. We remarked on our fitness; gradients that would have exhausted us when we left Doi’s compound now felt like exhilarating challenges. On the morrow we were going to need all that fitness.

  At 5.15 p.m. indirect signs of humanity appeared: four donkeys, grazing not far above the path. Two were winsome mares and Egbert greeted them appreciatively, becoming indelicately excited.

  ‘Damn!’ I said. ‘He’ll have to be tethered tonight!’

  Soon the path dropped into a cleft where clear water flowed beneath tangled trees that made it seem already dusk. Here we performed our river ritual, observed from a little distance by a Peeping Tom baboon. There were no other signs of humanity as a final tough climb took us onto the most beautiful of all our Cameroonian campsites.

  When Egbert had been turned loose (until bedtime) I neglected my Promethean duties, stood by the edge of our site and gave thanks to be alive in such a glorious place. Opposite, to the south, beyond a mile of parched grassland dotted with low trees, towered a massive solitary mountain of sheer grey rock. To the south-east, in the background, rose that mighty wall of blue mountains we had just crossed. And in the foreground, on a long flat-topped ridge, vividly green grass and a collapsed straw hut marked a deserted corral. Behind the camp our ledge merged into a patch of jungle, above which a steep mountain-wall, all rock and scrub, cut off the view to the north. A mile or so to the west this wall joined a complex knot of still higher grassy mountains on which sheets of flame were visible after sunset – suggesting dwellings not too far away. Some twenty yards from our camp a stream was audible, though invisible and inaccessible, in a deep densely forested ravine. From my high vantage point I could see, simultaneously, four separate warthog families going about their supper business, a baboon colony on one ridge and five russet antelope bounding across the grassy plain. Then swishing leaves made me look around, to see three colobus monkeys staring from the nearby trees.