When I did catch him, it was quite by accident. He had jumped off a pile of old boxes on to the mosquito net over my camp bed, obviously thinking that the net was a firm surface to land on. Of course, his weight made the net sag and the next minute he was all tangled up in its folds. Before he could wriggle free, I had managed to rush forward and grab him. After that experience, I was very careful about opening the galagos’ door.
In which I am bitten by bandits
Anyone passing the cage next door to the galagos’, hearing the fearsome noises that came from its interior would have been excused for thinking that there was a pair of tigers locked in it; or, if not tigers, some equally fierce and noisy animal. Snarls, squeaks, screeches, and grunts combined with snuffles and growls could almost always be heard coming from inside this cage. All this uproar was made by three little animals a bit smaller than the average guinea-pig, which I had christened the ‘bandits’. They were, in fact, baby kusimanses, a small animal like a mongoose, and for their size, they were far more nuisance than nearly all the other animals put together.
When they first arrived, they were each about the size of a small rat, and they had only just got their eyes open. Their fur was a bright gingery colour, sticking up in tufts and spikes all over their bodies, and they had long, pink, indiarubber noses that wiffled this way and that with curiosity.
At first, I had to feed them on milk and this was no easy job, for they drank more milk than any other baby animal I had ever seen; the whole business was made more difficult by the fact that they were far too small to be able to drink from the feeding bottle I used for the other baby animals. I had to feed them by wrapping a lump of cotton-wool round the end of a stick, dipping it in milk, and then letting them suck it.
This worked very well in the beginning, because they had no teeth, but as soon as their teeth appeared through the gums they began to be troublesome They were so greedy that they would take hold of the cotton-wool and hang on to it like bulldogs, refusing to let go to allow me to dip it into the milk again. On many occasions, they bit so hard that the cotton-wool came off the end of the stick and they would then try to swallow it. Only by putting my finger down their throats and capturing the wool as it was disappearing could I save them from being choked to death. They did not like having a finger stuck down their throats, as it always made them sick; and, of course, as soon as they had been sick, they would begin to feel hungry again and so we would have to repeat the whole performance.
As soon as they got their sharp little teeth, they began to feel very brave and venturesome, and they were always only too ready to poke their long noses into somebody else’s business. I kept them at first in a basket near my bed so that I could feed them more easily during the night. The top for this basket was not too secure and the bandits were always climbing out and trotting off on tours of inspection around the camp. This worried me, because we had a number of dangerous animals there and the bandits seemed to have no fear, for they would stick their noses into a monkey’s cage or a snake’s box with equal freedom. They spent their lives in an endless search for food, and everything they came across they would bite, in the hopes that it would turn out to be something tasty.
On one occasion they had escaped from their basket, without my noticing, and had wandered round by the long line of monkey cages to see if they could find anything nice to eat. I had a monkey at that time with a very long, silky tail of which she was extremely proud. She used to spend hours every day grooming it, so that it was spotlessly clean and the fur gleaming. She happened to be sitting in the bottom of her cage, having a sun bath, her lovely tail dangling through the wire, when the bandits appeared on the scene.
One of them found this long, silky tail lying on the ground and, as it did not appear to belong to anyone, and it seemed as though it might be good to eat, he rushed at it and sank his teeth into it. The other two, seeing what he had found, immediately joined him and laid hold as well. The monkey was terribly frightened and scrambled up to the top of her cage, screaming loudly, but this did not shake off the bandits; they clung on like a vice and the higher the monkey climbed up the cage, the higher her tail lifted them off the ground, so that when I arrived on the scene, they were about a foot in the air, revolving slowly round and round, all growling together with their jaws still firmly locked to the monkey’s tail. It took me several minutes to get them to let go, and then they only did so because I blew clouds of cigarette smoke in their faces, and made them cough.
Not long after this, the bandits did very much the same sort of thing to me. Every morning when I had given them their breakfast, I would let them wander around my bed until my tea arrived. They would investigate the bed very thoroughly, grunting and squeaking to each other, trotting up and down and sticking their long, pink noses into every fold of the sheets to make sure nothing eatable was hidden there.
On this particular morning I was lying there half asleep while the bandits scrambled all over the bed and did mountaineering tricks on the blanket. Suddenly I felt an agonizing pain in my foot. I shot up in bed and discovered that one of the bandits had been nosing round and uncovered my toe. This, he thought, was some delicacy I had concealed for his special benefit.
Greedy, as usual, he had tried to get as much of my toe as possible into his mouth, and was busily chewing at it, uttering delighted grunts when I caught him by the tail and hauled him off. He was most reluctant to let go: in fact, he seemed extremely annoyed at being disturbed in the middle of what was obviously going to be a wonderful meal.
Eventually, the bandits grew too big to be kept in a basket and I had to move them to a cage. Actually, the real reason was that they had bitten such huge holes in the wickerwork that there was hardly any basket left to keep them in. They had by this time learnt to feed out of a dish and were eating raw eggs and finely chopped meat mixed up with their milk. I built them a very nice cage and they thoroughly approved of it. It had a bedroom at one end for them to sleep in, and the rest of the cage was used for feeding and playing in. There were two doors, one at each end of the cage, leading into the bedroom and playground. I had hoped that once they were settled in this new home, I would have no more trouble with them, but I was very much mistaken. The problem now was to feed them.
Their cage was on top of a whole pile of others containing various creatures, and so it was quite high off the ground. As soon as they saw me approaching with the food dish, they would all start screaming as loudly as they could, and would cluster round the door, poking their long, pink noses through the wire. They would be so excited at the idea of a meal, and each one so determined to get to the food plate first, that as soon as I opened the door of the cage, they would hurl themselves through it, screaming and yelling, knock the plate of food out of my hand and fall to the ground below with a crash. I let them do this twice, thinking that after the second fall they would have learnt not to rush out the moment the door was opened, but it was no use. They would shoot out like rockets, the plate would go flying and they would land on the floor snorting and biting wildly.
Then I would have to pick them up, put them back in their cage and go and prepare another plateful of food. When they were as excited as this, you had to be very careful how you picked them up as well, for they used to bite at anything and everything within reach.
At last I grew tired of having the bandits falling out of their cage at every mealtime, so I invented a rather cunning plan.
I would go to the cage with their food dish as usual, they would cluster round the door, waiting their chance to dash out. Then I would get somebody to go to the other end of the cage and rattle the door leading to their bedroom. As soon as they heard this, they would think the food dish was being put in there and would scramble off down the cage, screaming and growling, and disappear into the bedroom. When they were safely out of sight, I had to open the other door; they would realize they had been fooled and come dashing out of their bedroom again. Then, if I had not got my hand outside, they would p
robably fasten on to my fingers and hang on for all they were worth.
These little animals probably caused me more trouble and gave me more bites and scratches than any other creatures I have collected. But even so, I could not help getting fond of them. I knew they did not bite me because they were nasty-tempered, but simply because they became over-excited and mistook me for bits of a meal. I used to get extremely angry with them sometimes and think how nice it would be if I handed them over to a zoo, for somebody else to be worried and bitten by them. But when at last that time came and I handed them over to the zoo where they were going to live, I really felt sorry to see them go.
I went and took a last look at them in their big zoo cage, and they appeared so innocent and sweet, trotting round on the sawdust, wiffling their stupid looking noses, that I wondered if perhaps I had misjudged them. I began to feel very sad at the thought of parting with them. I called them over to the wire to say good-bye and they looked so quiet and good that I poked my finger through the bars to scratch their heads for the last time. I should really have known better. They changed at once from innocent-looking little animals to the screeching bandits I knew of old, and before I could remove my finger, they had all fastened on to it, in a bunch.
When I eventually got free, I walked away from the cage, mopping up the blood with my handkerchief and deciding that I was, after all, very glad that somebody else was going to look after them in the future.
In which I become involved with a number of monkeys
A great many people, both European and African, used to come to the camp site, to have a look round and see all the strange animals that I had collected. Among these varied creatures, there were, of course, the monkeys, of which we had about fifty different kinds. Sharing even such a big thing as a marquee with many of these lively animals was an exhausting experience, for fifty monkeys can create an awful lot of trouble when they give their minds to it.
Of all the monkeys we had, there are three that I remember best. These were Footle, the moustached monkey, Weekes, the red-headed mangabey, and, last but not last, Cholmondely, the chimpanzee.
Footle, when he arrived in the camp, was the smallest monkey I had ever seen, for, with the exception of his long tail, he would fit very comfortably into a teacup, and then leave a certain amount of room to spare. His fur was a peculiar shade of green, and he had a very nice white shirt front; his head, like those of most baby monkeys, seemed much too big for his body and it was the same greenish colour, except for his cheeks, which were a bright buttercup yellow. But the most astonishing thing about him was the broad curved band of white fur across his upper lip, which made him look exactly as though he possessed a big moustache. I had never seen anything quite so ridiculous as this tiny monkey wearing this enormous Santa-Claus–like decoration on his face.
For the first few days, Footle lived in a basket by my bed with other baby animals, and had to be fed with milk from a feeding bottle. The bottle was about twice his size, and he used to fling himself on it with cries of joy when it arrived, stuff the end into his mouth, and wrap his arms and legs round it firmly, so that I could not take it away before he had finished. He would not even let me hold the bottle for him, presumably in case I stole any of the contents, and so he would roll about on the bed with it clutched in his arms, looking just as if he were wrestling with an airship. Sometimes he would be on top, sometimes the bottle, but whether he was on top or underneath, Footle would still suck away at the milk, his moustache jerking up and down with the effort.
He was a very intelligent little monkey and it was not very long before he had learned to drink his milk out of a saucer but as soon as this had been mastered, his table manners became simply frightful. I would put him on the table to be fed, and when he saw me approaching with the saucer he would work himself up into a frenzy of impatience, jumping up and down with excitement and screaming at the top of his voice. Hardly was his meal on the table, than he would without any hesitation dive head first into it. There would be a great shower of milk and he would sit in the centre of it and duck his head under the surface, only coming up when he could not hold his breath any longer. Occasionally, in his greed, he would wait too long and come up sputtering and sneezing out milk like a fountain. It used to take me a good half an hour to dry him after every meal, for by the time he had finished, he would look as though he had been bathing in the milk instead of drinking it.
I decided that this could not go on, for Footle was fed five times a day and, as he got soaked each time, I was frightened that he might catch a chill.
I thought that the reason for his excitement was that he could see the milk coming when he was sitting on the table, so I tried a new way of feeding him. I put the saucer on the table first and then carried Footle to it. The first time I did this, he saw the milk when he was still some way off and, uttering a shrill squeal of joy, he jumped out of my hands, shot through the air very gracefully, and landed in the centre of the milk with a splash. Of course, the saucer was overturned and both Footle and I were drenched.
After this, I tried holding him while he drank, and this was a trifle more successful. He used to wriggle and scream with rage because I would not let him dive into the milk as though it were a swimming pool, and sometimes he would succeed and struggle free, plunging in before I could stop him. But on most occasions, this method worked well and he remained reasonably dry, except of course for his face. I was unable to stop him pushing that into the milk, and when he came up for air his face would be so white with cream that you could not tell where his moustache began and ended.
When Footle was not eating, he loved to cling to something. All baby monkeys, when they are that age, usually cling to the soft fur of their mother as she wanders through the trees. Footle, having adopted me as his mother, seemed to think that it was only right that he should cling to me when he was not feeding. Most of the time I used to carry him around when I worked, and he behaved very well, sitting on my shoulder, and clinging to my ear with one hand. But one day he got too brave and jumped off, to land on the wire front of a cage which contained a large and fierce monkey, which promptly grabbed Footle by the tail. If I had not been there to rescue him, this would have been his last adventure.
I decided that it was too dangerous for Footle to sit on my shoulder while I worked, and therefore I shut him up in his basket, but he was obviously unhappy and spent his day screaming plaintively and trying to climb out, so I had to think of something else. I got an old coat of mine and wore it for a few days, carrying him around on my shoulder as usual. When he had become quite used to the garment, I took it off and hung it over the back of a chair and then put Footle on to it. He did not seem to realize that I was no longer inside the coat and clung to it with great affection.
So every morning I would put the coat over the back of the chair, place Footle on it and he would cling there quite happily while I got on with my work. He seemed to think that the coat was part of me, a sort of extra skin I suppose, and as long as he was attached to some part of me he felt quite happy. He would even carry on long squeaking conversations with me while I worked, but never attempted to leave the coat and climb up on to my shoulder.
When he eventually arrived back at Liverpool, Footle had a wonderful time posing on my shoulder for the press-photographers. They were quite fascinated by him; none of them had ever seen such a tiny monkey. One reporter watched him for a long time, and then he turned to me and said, ‘You know, he seems awfully young to have such a big moustache.’
Weekes, the red-headed mangabey, came by his name owing to his cry. Whenever you went near his cage, he would open his mouth wide and shout ‘Weekes, weekes’ at the top of his voice.
He was a delicate shade of grey all over, except for a band of white fur round his neck, and the top of his head, which was a bright mahogany red. His face was a very dark grey and his eyelids were creamy white. Normally, you could not see these, but when he greeted you he would raise his eyebrows and lower his lids
so suddenly, it looked as though his eyes had been covered by white shutters.
Weekes was very bored with living in a cage by himself with no one to play with, but I could not give him a mate, as he was the only one of his species that I had. He did not realize this, however, for all round him he could hear and smell other monkeys and he thought it very unfair of me not to let him leave his cage and go to play with them. He decided the best thing to do was to tunnel his way out of the side when I was not looking.
He had discovered a small gap between the boards of the side of his cage and set to work with fingers and teeth to widen it. The wood was very hard, and it was only after much picking and biting that he was able to work off a small splinter. I kept a cautious eye on the hole to make sure it did not get any larger, but Weekes did not know this and thought I knew nothing about it. He would spend hours biting and scratching at the wood, but as soon as he heard me coming he would leap up on to his perch and sit there, looking as innocent as possible, raising his eyebrows and showing his white eyelids, blinking at me cheerfully, in the hope of persuading me that he was the very last monkey in the camp to do anything wicked.
I did not do anything about Weekes’s hole, for I thought that as soon as he found out how hard the wood was he would soon give it up. To my surprise, exactly the opposite happened. He became so interested that he used to spend every available moment biting and scratching and sucking at the wood. Every time I came on the scene, however, there he was sitting on his perch without a care in the world, and if it had not been for the few splinters that stuck to the hairs of his chin, I should not have known that he was still going on with his mining operations. He seemed so convinced that I did not know about his secret passage that one day I thought I would give him a surprise.
The New Noah Page 4