Travels with Myself and Another

by Martha Gellhorn

  The road gave out almost immediately and became dust ruts and rocks. It was hot to begin with and got hotter. This is a different kind of heat: dry, and worse. Sweat evaporates quickly, my skin feels as if it were cracking, tight and scalded. After a while, the heat seems to come from inside.

  Ibrahim is a good driver and reserved; he sits silent in front and chews a native gum, which he must swallow eventually; I have not seen him spit but occasionally have seen him gnaw off something invisible. I tried to make conversation; having thought he was seventeen, I learn that he is twenty-three, married, and has a child. That is all I can find out about him. I think he speaks very little French, aside from being a non-talker. We eat dust.

  I do feel that I am in Africa now, and it is oppressive. The sky is higher here and a very pale blue, cloudless. One cannot see far distances (what am I dreaming of? visions from a mountain top?) but what one sees is arid emptiness, with dead yellow grass and some scrub trees. We pass native villages, walled with adobe or with rush mats, the pointed thatched roofs showing. (Are they walled to keep out wild animals at night?) Natives roam about near them, on the road, across this uninviting country. The adults are half naked, the children naked. From the rear it is impossible to tell a man and woman apart; equally tall, square-shouldered, narrow-hipped, shaved heads. The women wear a dirty dark-coloured sarong, the size of a small bath towel, the men are variously covered. Nose rings now appear; bullet heads, flat noses, big mouths; not Fulanis. The people are very thin, often with swollen bellies. Breasts are soon gone; the old women have perfectly flat pieces of skin hanging on their chests, sometimes there is nothing of a breast except a jutting nipple. Ruptured navels make their ugly bump on all the children’s bellies. Everyone has flat feet; so much for the myth, derived partly from Pocahontas, partly from Isadora Duncan, of bare feet, never cramped by shoes, growing beautiful and high-arched. On the other hand these people can walk on anything without pain and walk endlessly, which is again confusing. Perhaps, as in all else, Africans are different; I don’t recall that the shoeless Chinese peasants were flat-footed.

  The children are charming and dark skin always looks more alive and healthier than white but as to features and body, no one could say this is a beautiful race. Still, they give an impression—which I cannot remember anywhere else on my travels—of being at ease, no that’s not right: of taking life by the minute as it comes, without anxiety. What am I trying to say? That, if they have enough to eat, I think they are much better off as they are than they will be if our civilization gets hold of them.

  The sunset is red across an immense sky. The little mountains and huge massed boulders of volcanic rock are black against the light. Twinkling fires shine in the villages. Towards Marua, the rocks take on strange shapes—a great ape god, a Buddha—and there is no sound except the car and no one to be seen. I feel that man is a brief event on this continent; no place has ever felt older to me, less touched or affected by the human race. But the blacks and the wild animals belong here. In the mud huts that any rain will wash away, or behind their mat walls that any wind will knock down, the blacks have lasted and know their place in the land, and fit. No one else does; and I doubt if civilization, our kind, ever will.

  January 31: Last night, the R. and W. King young man (again different from my previous guardians; more like a charming Etonian who chose hardship) led me to the local inn; modern bucaroos, very fresh and swank. Brand new too, and I wonder what they are here for. A great pleasure, after that slum in Garua. The burning dry heat of the day is followed by a too cold night; this is not a climate in which you can win. It is also cold in the early morning; gets light at 6.15 a.m.

  To note: it takes time, great determination and a lot of money to escape civilization. To note further: there, one is really alone. This has nothing to do with the familiar being alone—lighting on a hotel in a strange city or village in Europe, travelling by oneself, having no friends, working, reading, looking. This is solitude: the difference and distance between me and these blacks is too great to cross; it almost makes one feel blind and deaf, so complete is the isolation.

  I bought an assortment (scant and untempting) of tinned foods, for Waza, where you feed yourself, and Ibrahim and I set off. The heat was now on the way to becoming intense, at about 9 a.m. We drove through the usual dust, over the usual road; but the Citroën is a beautifully sprung car and though I do not think its life will be long, it cushions one well. Driving is rather like riding a roller-coaster, hour after hour. Due to heat or dust or something, I am already getting blasé about the remote ancient life of these people in their villages. Nothing about them dismays me except their smell. Otherwise I regard them as right and at home—and a world apart, which I am no more apt to enter than I am apt to enter the domain of wild animals.

  Around 1 p.m., we got to the back gate of the Waza game reserve. First sight, inside the park, was two Kirdi women, as tall as very tall men, looking like men except for the extraneous pendulous breasts, tattooed, tending goats. Then we began to see birds and animals; a great flock of crested cranes, all standing in the same way and facing the same direction, like a division at ease. After this, I got my first glimpse of giraffes; everything is not as foreseen. The giraffes here are pale, creamy, scarcely marked, and they move like shadows among the thorn trees. They are very shy and yet inquisitive. Above a thorn tree, a head turns towards the noise of the car; ears out, the large heavily lashed eyes bewildered, the mouth like the toothless old. They look the gentlest of animals and the strangest. Their kick, with the front feet, is apparently fatal, but is only used for self defence. Lions attack young giraffes. Judging from the glimpses I got of them, family life means a lot to giraffes. They have delicious gestures, rubbing their necks tenderly together, seeming to kiss; and the young ones run—in that adorable lolloping way—to Mum, when a noise disturbs them.

  There were huge herds of antelope; don’t know their names; some with brown faces, some white and black. Male and female keep company. A family of warthogs, father, mother and three young, galloped across the road with their tails erect as radio antennae. They are very neatly formed and look like much bigger animals, like boar perhaps; except their smooth haunches are like toy horses. Now more giraffe and crushing heat. The animals move in the blazing midday sun to get water. One cannot see far; this is tree and brush country—not jungle, bush—a flat land, with a high pale blue burning sky.

  The campement for visitors to the game park is made of bucaroos, as usual, and a communal dining room. Also communal toilet for several bucaroos, which does not work. Very primitive altogether, but on a height and therefore catches a slight breeze. You take your tinned food to the dining room and a cheerful and incompetent black opens the tins and heats whatever is inside to a lukewarm temperature. The only reason to eat is from necessity, to keep up one’s strength as we always say of drink; I long for iced water.

  After the usual stunned afternoon sleep, I set out with Ibrahim and a Mandara tribesman called Ali. Ali’s people were a fisherman tribe on Lake Tchad; I don’t know how Ali got down this way on to dry land, but consider it a mistake. He is tall, filthy, his whole face lined with tattooed scars, his eyes red, wearing very short blue shorts, a singlet and a black velvet cap like Nehru’s white one. At 5 p.m., after failing to find anything much on the tracks (which are no pleasure to ride, and the heat is still suffocating) Ali went off, leaving me and Ibrahim under a tree, beside a pond, and near some enormous elephant droppings. We could hear the elephants tearing down trees for their dinner, in the bush. Ali reappeared about half an hour later and suggested that I follow him on foot, into that high bush, to look at a herd of six elephants, which was feeding some six kilometres away. I doubt if he knows anything about distance; but I know that night falls at 6 p.m. I said quelle bêtise, crossly, and thought really the French were daft, why didn’t they train their guides better.

  On the way back to the campement we saw a hunting lioness, moving fast and flat through the long
grass; it was the same tawny sunburned colour as the grass and looked extremely dangerous. Ali was so excited that he screamed in a high voice, whereupon the lioness made off.

  Now that it is somewhat cooler (or perhaps now that the lions are hunting), the animals are on the move. I saw running giraffes, a slow long rocking movement of shapes among the trees; running gazelle, too lovely for words, like flying. Families of warthogs were galloping away as if on some private racetrack. Occasionally we cross mountainous elephant droppings and torn trees. Jackals look like dogs and run the same way. There were two amazing birds, white and black bodies, bigger than storks, with red beaks and red, yellow, and blue marking about their eyes. “What are those birds, Ali?” “Birds,” said he. I could not believe that the anthills really were anthills, though they had to be, but they were much bigger, higher, and solider than I had imagined, so I asked Ali what they were, too. “They have always been like that,” he answered. I’m not going to learn much nature lore from him.

  This reserve is claustrophobic, and not my dream picture of how the animals live in Africa. The bush creeps up to the track, the animals disappear into it. Sense of tremendous goings-on, invisible and silent, hidden by the high grass. The heat is like a punishment.

  My intestinal tract is cause for complaint, if that’s the source of the trouble. Starting to swell again, from the feet up. Tired and disappointed. I feel as if there were a barrier like glass between me and Africa; I have not found whatever it is that I am seeking.

  February 1: Six other whites, French people, are staying here. I saw them last night in the communal dining room. They are very gay, on holiday from whatever their city jobs are. The shops in towns are still owned and run by whites, and there is always a white in the background, at the garages, hotels, in the government, tactfully holding together such civilization (oh that loose word) as exists. These people might be trades-men or civil servants, with their wives. Weirdly dressed, according to my preconceptions from movies and books; ladies in tiny shorts, gents in city shoes and bits and pieces of outdoor clothing—more like beachwear than animal-watching. They are well equipped with food, as for an extended picnic.

  It is not to be imagined that whites, because so few and far between, fall upon each other, especially upon strangers, with cries of welcome and delight. The French party did not notice me and I did not think it correct to make overtures.

  I spoke to the game warden, who was dining well and alone, about Ali; very affably of course, but pointing out that it was hardly sound to suggest venturing into the bush, unarmed, after elephants. I had read that in the game parks in East Africa one was never allowed to get out of one’s car, or go off the track without permission. The car smell (petrol, oil) muffles the human smell and the animals have not yet put two and two together; also one can get away quick in a car. The game warden said, “Oh no, one must always have confidence in the guides.” (“Il faut toujours faire confiance aux pisteurs.”) “They know the animals well, and the terrain. You are safe with them.” I still did not agree with this, but felt I was being cowardly, and after all the game warden must know his business.

  This morning, Ali and Ibrahim turned up an hour late; Ali’s fault; Ibrahim, left to himself, is a most reliable boy. We were too late to get to a mirador above a drinking pond, before dawn, to watch the elephants come for their morning splash. I was furious and Ibrahim was miserable; he had not slept all night, due to the bedbugs in Ali’s hut. He looked dirty, unlike him, and very unhappy. We drove futilely, as the sun rose higher, and saw nothing; I was conscious of time lost and costly kilometres. We arrived at a dead end of track where another, older guide was setting off with three French people, a peroxided lady in peacock blue trousers and little white ballet slippers, two men just as oddly clad. Ali and their guide talked excitedly; Ali explained there were elephants in the bush, and urged me to follow. Filled with doubt, I tailed along behind.

  The Frenchmen made jokes in their usual voices. I remembered two rules about proper bush behaviour: (1) Wear no bright colours. (2) Do not speak. Elephants have bad eyesight and are alleged to see nothing more than twenty feet away; but have fine hearing and an acute sense of smell. The older guide and Ali were both busy being very Red Indian, noting twigs, droppings, sifting dust to see how the wind blew. I thought them theatrical for our benefit. We walked single file deeper and deeper into the grass which was higher than my head. I doubted that this undertaking was well advised.

  We heard a tree crash, some distance ahead, and Ali cavorted with excitement. On we went until we saw, at a reasonable distance, an enormous bull elephant silently eating the tasty top of a thorn tree. I focused my binoculars, had a good look and felt no urge whatever to proceed. The French, innocent and unafraid, city people to their ballet slippers and the toes of their pointed shoes, pushed on. I told Ali we would go back.

  He led me on another track; I had lost all sense of direction as soon as we got into the bush; trees look alike, you see a few feet ahead of you on the narrow beaten path. I heard in the grass to my left a lion; have never heard one before, but knew at once what this snarling, coughing sound was. I was badly shocked and whispered to Ali, “Un lion.” “Oui,” he said. “Où?” “Where?” when referring to a lion, is not the sort of question you expect from a game park guide; it did the exact opposite of inspire confidence. But it was not the lion that had frozen Ali and made his eyes roll: in front of us, some twenty yards away, silent as stone, stood elephants—we had come on a little clearing. There were two females and a big bull, motionless. Fortunately I did not see the two baby elephants behind the females, or my panic would have been greater.

  I focused my binoculars with clumsy hands, terrified, and there sprang into view, far too close, an enormous still head, with small suspicious eyes under old drooping lids, looking into mine. The last thing in life I had ever wanted was to be face to face with elephants, on foot, in the bush, accompanied by an imbecile. Ali was desperately lighting matches and sifting dust; too late, I thought, if we are downwind they’d have charged us by now. The elephant fears no animal except man, with cause; and is incensed by the human smell. At this point there was a crunch to our right and behold, much nearer, a much bigger bull elephant was gently pulling off bits from a tree top with his trunk.

  Ali, his eyes rolling, whispered, “Beaucoup éléphant.” I was too alarmed to speak, but pushed him, to indicate that we should get a move on. He went ahead, walking fast and silently. I followed trying not to make a sound, and when he stopped, I raised my eyes from the path and saw that he had brought us, in a half circle, even closer to the elephants. The two baby elephants now all too visible. I was rooted to the spot with fear, an expression I have often read but never experienced. I was also beside myself with anger, furious with the game warden, furious with Ali; imagine being in this Charlie Chaplin situation of the greatest peril, because the whole lot of them were bloody fools. The elephants, again soundlessly, lifted their ears, which stood out like tremendous swaying leaves, and silently turned to face us.

  Ali began to take me, respectfully, by the bottom, to urge me away, his eyes were wide, staring, his mouth open in shock. I slapped him smartly on the shoulder and hissed, “Cours! Je te suis.” He ran, leaping on his huge flat feet, and I ran after him; I would not have believed that I could run so fast and so silently. I decided not to think about the lion in the grass; better just not to think of it. After some distance, Ali slowed down; we were still however in an odious fix, able to see nothing over the grass. “Bon maintenant,” Ali announced a bit breathlessly. It did not look bon to me.

  We went on walking; the heat was the least of my concerns. Finally Ali came to a broad dust track, which he recognized. He stamped this with his bare foot, laughed, and said idiotically, “D’accord.” I have never so wanted to hit anyone, but I never have hit anyone and it’s too late to start. Ali now turned and said smugly, “Ali bon type. Blanc veut voir éléphant. Ali trouve éléphant toujours. Toujours.” It seemed fut
ile to point out that the elephants had found us, if anything; and that he was a menace to life and it would be a frosty day in Waza before I ventured into the bush with him again.

  Ibrahim was waiting by the car. I said furiously that I was hot and wanted to go back to the campement. On the way Ali boasted of his exploits to Ibrahim while I sat behind, seething. We saw ostriches, an untidy weird bird, with an upper thigh like a ballet dancer and feet like high-laced black shoes. Their walk and run are prissy and feminine and incredibly fast. We stopped at a water hole to watch a tribe of brown antelope—there must have been several hundred—crowded together like sheep, horns and heads clear against the sky, queuing for their turn at a drink and a wash. The water hole was lined with drinking and wading and rolling bodies; when the occupants were finished they moved off, still in that close silent formation and were lost under the trees, while newcomers took their place. The organization and amity of this communal life was astonishing; the silence and the beauty were heart-lifting.

  I saw a tree full of birds that looked like eagles, and a couple of grey monkeys; useless to ask Ali for nature lore; besides I was still too angry to talk to him. The heat had become intolerable, and I decided I’d had enough of Waza, French game parks were not my dish; I meant to look at animals with love, not in mortal terror, and hoped to find someone who would explain them to me. I paid Ali off, and told Ibrahim that we would leave after I had had some breakfast.