THREE SINGLES TO ADVENTURE

by Gerald Malcolm Durrell

  THREE SINGLES TO ADVENTURE

  Gerald Malcolm Durrell

  THREE SINGLES TO ADVENTURE

  by Gerald Durrell

  THIS IS FOR

  ROBERT LOWES

  In memory of Snakes, Sloths, and South American Saddles Contents

  Acknowledgements

  While we were in Guiana so many people helped us in such a variety of ways that it is impossible to thank them all. I would, however, like to mention the following people, to whom we owe a very great debt of gratitude.

  Mr. and Mrs. Charles Dowding, of Georgetown , allowed us to live in their beautiful house, fill their garden with our weird collection of animals, and helped and encouraged us in every possible way. They showed us kindness that is, unfortunately, all too rare nowadays. It is impossible for us to thank them adequately for all they did for us.

  Mr. Vincent Roth, Curator of the British Guiana Museum and his Assistant, Mr. Ram Singh, were both very kind to us, and without their help and advice we could have accomplished little. Mr. Singh was particularly helpful in identifying various specimens of the fauna we collected, and was always ready to place at our disposal his considerable knowledge of the bird life of the territory. Mr. and Mrs. McTurk, of Karanambo, deserve our special thanks, for putting up both Robert Lowes and myself when we arrived in the Rupununi, and for helping us to obtain so many fine specimens. We are very grateful to all those members of Booker Brothers, in Guiana , who helped us to obtain passages for ourselves and our animals, and who arranged for our stores of food for the voyage. I would also like to thank the Captain and crew of the ship I travelled home on, who went out of their way to make my voyage as easy as possible.

  A Word in Advance.

  The following book is an account of a trip I made to British Guiana during 1950 with my partner, Kenneth Smith. Our object in going there was to bring back, for various zoological gardens in this country, a living collection of the birds, mammals, reptiles and fish that inhabit that corner of South America .

  A lot of people are under the mistaken impression that the catching of the animals is the most difficult part of such a trip, and that once the beasts have been caught and dumped into boxes your job is more or less at an end. Actually, at this point the job is only just beginning, for once the animal is caught you have to keep it alive and well, and this, in most cases, is no easy task.

  During a trip of this sort you meet with many kinds of adventure, some amusing, some thrilling and some that are extremely irritating. But these are merely the highlights in many months of work and worry that go to make up a collecting trip. However, when you sit down to write a book about it, all the worries, irritations and disappointments seem to fade from your memory, leaving only the more entertaining moments to be recorded. Thus you tend to paint a false picture of collecting. It seems to be nothing more than a thrilling and amusing romp, a rather colourful and exciting sort of job. It is, at times, all of these things; but at other times it is also depressing, disappointing, frustrating and damned hard work as well. But there is one thing to be said for collecting, one advantage it has over all other forms of employment: it can never, under any circumstances, be described as dull.

  In a tiny bar in the back streets of Georgetown four of us sat round a table, sipping rum and ginger beer and pondering a problem. Spread on the table in front of us was a large map of Guiana , and occasionally one of us would lean forward and peer at it, frowning fiercely. Our problem was to choose a place, out of all the fascinating names on the map, to serve as a base for our first animal-collecting trip to the interior. For two hours we had been trying to make up our minds, and we still had not found a solution. I stared at the map, tracing the course of the rivers and mountains, gloating over such wonderful names as Pomeroon, Mazaruni, Kanuku, Berbice, and Essequibo .

  "What about New Amsterdam?" asked Smith, choosing the one really commonplace name on the map.

  I shuddered. Bob shook his head, and Ivan looked blank.

  "Well, then, what about the Mazaruni?"

  "Flooded," said Bob concisely.

  "Guiana," I quoted ecstatically from a guide book, "is an Amerindian word meaning Land of Water."

  "There must be somewhere you can go," said Smith in exasperation; "we've been sitting here for hours; for goodness' sake make up your minds, and let's get to bed."

  I looked at Ivan; for the last hour he had apparently been in a trance, and had made no suggestions.

  "What do you think, Ivan?" I asked him."After all, you were born here, so you ought to know the best place to get specimens."

  Ivan awoke from his trance, and a worried expression spread across his face, making him look like a St. Bernard that had mislaid its barrel.

  "Well, sir," he began, in his incredibly cultured voice,"I think you'd do well if you went to Adventure."

  "Where? asked Bob and I in unison.

  "Adventure, sir," he stabbed at the map; "it's a small village just here, near the mouth of the Essequibo ."

  I looked at Smith.

  "We're going to Adventure," I said firmly."I must go to a place with a name like that."

  "Good!" said my partner."Now that's settled can we go to bed?"

  "He has no soul," said Bob sorrowfully; "the word Adventure means nothing to him."

  To get to this village with the provocative name proved easier than I had anticipated. It transpired that all we had to do was to go down to the quay in Georgetown and ask for a ticket. It struck me as a trifle incongruous, even in these modern days, to be able to ask for a ticket to Adventure and, moreover, to start one's journey there on a large and ugly ferryboat. I felt that we should have set off in canoes paddled by fierce-looking warriors.

  Prelude

  However, bright and early one morning a taxi deposited Bob, Ivan, myself, and our odd assortment of luggage on the quay.

  Leaving my companions to argue with the driver over the correct fare, I walked up to the booking-office and uttered the magic words.

  "Three singles to Adventure, please," I said, trying to look as nonchalant as possible.

  "Yes, sir," said the clerk."First or second class?"

  This was almost too much for me; it was bad enough, I felt, to be able to ask for tickets to Adventure, but when it came down to a question of first or second class I began to wonder if the place was worth going to. We would probably find it was a thriving seaside resort, with cinemas, snack-bars, neon lights, and other doubtful privileges of civilization. Turning round, I saw Ivan staggering along under a great load of our possessions, and I called him over to settle this apparently delicate question of class. He explained that if one travelled second class one was herded somewhere down in the bilges of the ferry and, later on, in the bilges of the river steamer. A first-class ticket, however, gave you the privilege of sitting on a dilapidated deck-chair on the top deck of the ferry, and on the river steamer you could even get lunch. So I purchased three first-class single tickets to Adventure.

  We loaded our weird pile of kit on deck, and soon the ferry was throbbing its way across the dark, coffee-coloured expanse of the Demerara river. Bob and I leant on the rail and watched the small, sad-looking gulls flying in our wake.

  It was then I discovered that Bob had little idea what was in store for him.

  "I'm glad to be out of Georgetown ," he sighed, absently peeling a banana and throwing the skin at a passing gull.

  "It'll feel good to get into the wilds again and not feel shut in by all those houses. There's no place like the wilds for peace and contentment."

  I said nothing. I agreed that the wilds are the best place for relaxation, but I wondered if Bob had any idea what being in the wilds with an animal collector w
as like. Judging by his remarks he was under the impression that collecting consisted of lying in a hammock while the animals walked into the cages themselves. I decided not to disillusion him until we were a bit further away from Georgetown .

  Bob was an artist, and he had originally come to Guiana in order to paint a series of pictures of various Amerindian tribes. When he arrived, however, he found that the places he wanted to go to were all underwater and the rivers impassable. While he was sitting in Georgetown waiting, like Noah, for the floods to subside, he met us. On hearing that I intended to leave very soon for my first sortie into the interior, he suggested, with an innocence that does him credit, that he should accompany me. As he pointed out, it would be more fun to go on an animal-collecting trip than to sit waiting in Georgetown , and when we returned the floods might have gone down and he could go and paint his Amerindians. Unfortunately for Bob, he never got around to his objective; instead he spent his whole time in Guiana accompanying me on various trips to the interior. He was never allowed to put a brush to canvas, and towards the end he had no canvas to put a brush to, for we had taken it to make snake boxes out of, for sending shipments by air. He had to eat and sleep surrounded by a fantastic assortment of birds, beasts and reptiles; he had to swim across lakes and rivers, wade through swamps, struggle through forest and grassland, getting scratched and bruised, hot and tired. As we started off to Adventure on that fateful day I could foresee all this, but Bob was apparently oblivious of the danger he ran in getting mixed up with an animal collector.

  The ferry chugged importantly alongside the stone quay on the other bank of the Demerara, and we proceeded to unload our luggage in a leisurely fashion, by the simple process of throwing it over the rail to Ivan, who was standing on the quay below. When the last piece had been thrown over, and we had descended and joined Ivan, a lugubrious individual uncoiled himself from a barrel on which he had been seated and lounged forward.

  "Is you all to catch the Parika train?" he inquired.

  I admitted that this was our intention, if we could find some means of getting our luggage to the station.

  "Youall will have to hurry… train should've left ten minutes ago," said the lounger, with a certain relish.

  "Good Lord!" I said, in a panic.

  "How far is the station?"

  "Bout half a mile," said the lounger."I’ll get a truck for you all and he disappeared.

  "What happens if we miss the train, Ivan? Is there another one later on?"

  "No, sir. We'll have to wait until tomorrow if we miss it."

  "What, wait here" said Bob, gazing round at the muddy river bank and the two or three dilapidated sheds dotted about.

  "But where are we going to sleep?" Before Ivan could enlighten Bob our lounger returned at a shambling run, pulling an ancient trolley behind him.

  "Youall will have to hurry," he panted."I hear the train leaving."

  As we frantically piled our luggage on to the trolley we could hear in the distance the coughs and wheezing grunts of an engine getting up steam. We fled down the road towards the noise, the trolley clattering after us, propelled by Ivan and the panting lounger. We galloped on to the station, perspiring and gasping, to the intense interest of an odd assortment of humanity that was collected on the platform.

  They greeted our hot and dishevelled persons with a few derisive catcalls that quickly turned to cheers as our trolley hit a rock and most of the luggage fell off. By a superhuman effort we flung the last box in as the train pulled out, and, leaning out of the window, I flung a handful of small change at the face of the lounger, who was desperately trying to keep pace with the train, holding out his hands imploringly.

  The tiny train rattled along manfully, dragging its row of grimy carriages between the glistening paddy-fields and patches of woodland, at one point attaining a speed that seemed dangerously like twenty miles an hour. The landscape was green and lush, seeming as though it had just been swept and washed in preparation for us. Everywhere one looked there were birds: sparkling white egrets strode solemnly along in the short, tender, green rice; from the canals patch worked with water-lilies, jacanas flew up at our approach, in a sudden blaze of buttercup-yellow wings; in the blue sky snail hawks flew in stately arabesques, and in and out of the bushes flew dozens of military starlings, their crimson breasts flashing like lights against the green. The landscape seemed overloaded with birds; one glance, and you saw the egrets and their shimmering reflections, the jacanas mincing long-toed on the lily leaves, the bobbing yellow heads of the marsh birds among the rushes. My eyes ached with peering, now after one fleck of colour or a gaudy fluttering in the reeds, now following the swift flight of another across the fields.

  Bob slept peacefully in his corner of the carriage, and Ivan was somewhere in the depths of the guard's van, so I watched this ornithological pageant by myself. Soon, however, a stiff breeze sprang up, clouding the canal waters and blowing into the compartment all the smoke that the engine was proudly producing. Reluctantly, I shut the window; to judge from its appearance, it had not been cleaned since it had been put in. My view of the countryside being cut off, I followed Bob's example and fell into a doze. Eventually the train dragged itself into Parika with a vast effort, and we awoke and descended stiffly on to the platform. We found that, with a delicacy of timing that seemed out of place in the tropics, the river steamer was already in and making loud peevish hootings, as an indication that she wanted to resume her journey. We hurried on board and sank gratefully into the deck chairs that Ivan had procured for us. The steamer bobbed and chattered, drew away from Parika, and headed down the dark waters of the Essequibo, weaving her way through a maze of little green islands that dotted its surface. We sat in our chairs and dozed, ate bananas and admired the tangled beauty of the islands we passed. Presently we were served with lunch in the tiny saloon and then replete with food, we returned to our chairs in the sun. I had just succeeded in dozing off when I was rudely awakened by Bob shaking my arm.

  "Gerry, wake up, quick … you're missing a wonderful sight."

  The steamer, presumably in circumnavigating a shoal, had crept in close to the bank, and we were only separated from the dense undergrowth by about fifteen feet of water. I peered sleepily at the trees.

  "I can't see anything. What is it?"

  "There, on that branch … it's moving now, can't you see it?"

  And suddenly I saw it. In a blaze of sunlight, among the leaves, sat a creature out of a fairy tale. A great lizard, his scaly body coloured with all the various shades of jade, emerald, and grass green, his heavy head gnarled and encrusted with great scales, and beneath his chin a large, curving dewlap. He lay negligently across a branch, clasping the wood with his big, curved claws, dangling his whip-like tail towards the waters below. As we watched he turned his head, ornamented with its frills and protuberances, and started to feed casually on the young leaves and shoots about him. I could hardly believe that he was real, and I doubted if he was the same species as the dull, lethargic, greyish-coloured creatures which I had seen in zoos labelled as iguanas. As we passed directly opposite him he turned his head and gave us a haughty stare with his small, golden-flecked eyes. He looked as though he was just whiling away the time waiting for some Guianese St. George to come and do battle with him. We gazed at him spellbound, until distance merged his green body in distinguishably with the leaves on which he lay.

  Some little time later we were still discussing the iguana, when Ivan appeared, wearing his worried expression.

  "What's the matter, Ivan?" I asked.

  "Nothing, sir, but we will be arriving soon." Bob and I hurried to look over the rail, but the forested bank stretched away unbroken to the horizon. I was just about to ask Ivan if he was sure of his information when the steamer rounded a small bend, and out of the undergrowth rose a large shed, and pushing out among the mangroves was a small stone jetty. Across the corrugated iron roof of the shed was printed in bold white letters the word adventure. We had arr
ived.

  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.