THREE SINGLES TO ADVENTURE

by Gerald Malcolm Durrell

  The sloths have been subjected, since earliest times, to more gross misrepresentation than any other South American animals. They have been described as lazy, stupid, malformed, slow, ugly, in constant pain owing to their peculiar structure, and a host of other things. A fairly typical account is that given by one Gonzalo Ferdinando de Oviedo, quoted in Purcbas Pilgrims: There is another strange beast, which, by a name of contrary effect, the Spaniards call cagnuolo, that is, the Light Dogge, whereas it is one of the slowest beasts in the world, and so heavie and dull in moving, that it can scarcely goe fiftie pases in a whole day: they have foure sub till feete, and in every one of them foure clawes like unto birds, and joyaed together: yet are neither their clawes or their feet able to susteine their bodies from the ground. Their chiefe desire and delight is to cleave and sticke fast unto trees, or some other thing whereby they may climbe aloft. and whereas I my selfe have kept them in my house, I could never perceive other but that they live onely on aire: and of the same opinion are in like manner all men of those regions, because they have never scene them cate any thing, but ever turne their heads and mouthes towards that part where the wind bloweth most, whereby may be considered that they take most pleasure in the ayre. They bite not, or yet can bite, having very little mouthes: they are not venemous or noyous any way, but altogether brutish, and utterly unprofitable, and without commoditie yet know ne to man.

  Thus does Oviedo , with an almost journalistic skill, give a most inaccurate picture of the sloth. Firstly, the sloth is not such a sluggard that it can only accomplish 'fiftie pases' in a day. Travelling at full speed I should imagine that it could cover several miles in a day, providing, of course, that its path from tree to tree was clear. But the truth of the matter is that the sloth has no burning ambition to go dashing madly about the forest; so long as he is in a tree that provides him with ample food he is quite content to stay there. Oviedo goes on to make those very disparaging remarks about the sloth's arms and legs. He condemns these appendages because, as he points out, they are unable to 'susteine' the body from the ground. Now the sloth is not a terrestrial animal, but strictly arboreal; it will not descend from the trees unless it is absolutely necessary, and, when it does, it finds walking difficult or almost impossible because its legs are adapted for life in the trees. You cannot expect a sloth to run about the ground like a deer, any more than you would expect a deer to swing nimbly about in the branches of a tree. However, instead of praising the sloth for its wonderful adaptation to an arboreal existence, Oviedo busily points out that it cannot walk on the ground, a thing it has no desire to do and is quite unfitted for.

  Having made the poor animal feel self-conscious about its legs and arms, Oviedo then goes on to say that it lives on air. One can only presume that he did not try to feed the one that he kept in his house, or else that he offered it the wrong things, for sloths as a rule have quite a hearty appetite. He then dismisses the whole sloth population on the grounds that because they are of no use to man they are no use at all. The belief that all animals were placed on earth purely for man's convenience was, of course, usual in Oviedo's time, and still lingers on today. There are still many arrogant bipeds who believe that an animal should be exterminated as quickly as possible if it is of no direct use to mankind as a whole, and themselves in particular.

  The great Buffon launched a description of the sloth in his Natural History, and it was even worse than Oviedo's.

  According to him sloths were nothing more nor less than a gigantic error on the part of nature; the sloth was without weapons of offence or defence, it was slow, in constant pain and extremely stupid. All these are the results, he says, of the "strange and bungling conformation of creatures to whom nature has been unkind, and who exhibit to us the picture of innate misery."

  Shortly after our night fight with the two-toed sloth we procured a specimen of the second species of sloth found in Guiana , the three-toed sloth. The two animals were so totally different in appearance that at first sight they did not appear to be related at all. They were about the same size, but the three-toed had a remarkably small, rounded head with tiny eyes, nose, and mouth in comparison to its body.

  Instead of the sparse, shaggy brown fur of the two-toed, this sloth was clad in a coat of thick ash-grey hair which was of a curious texture, like dry moss. On its legs this hair was so thick that it made them look twice as strong as the two-toed's legs, whereas in reality they were much weaker. On its back, lying across the shoulder blades, was an area of dark hair shaped like a figure of eight.

  Having both these species together gave me an ideal opportunity to compare their habits, and I found that they differed as much in these as in their appearance. The two toed, for example, would sleep hanging beneath a branch, in the proper sloth manner, its head tucked between its forelegs and resting on its chest; the three-toed preferred to find a forked branch, and it would then fit itself into the fork, clinging to one branch with its feet and resting its back against the other. The two-toed, as I have described, was more or less helpless on the ground, but the three-toed, on the other hand, could hoist itself up on to its legs and crawl about, walking with the massive claws turned in and the legs bent, looking like a very old man suffering from acute rheumatism. Its progress was slow and quivering, it is true, but it could get from one place to another. Up in the trees, however, the situation was reversed, the two-toed being quick and agile, whereas the three-toed was slow and hesitant, and tested each new branch carefully before trusting its weight to it. As it had demonstrated on the night of its escape, the two-toed had a savage and untrustworthy nature, whereas its relation could be handled with complete safety, even when freshly caught.

  Finding the three-toed so tame I removed it from its cage the day after its arrival to examine it for a phenomenon which I very much wanted to study at first hand. Bob, finding me with the animal in my lap, assiduously searching its fur, not unnaturally wanted to know what I was doing.

  When I told him quite truthfully that I was looking for vegetation he refused to believe me. I explained at great length that I was not joking, but it was only long afterwards when we had another sloth brought in that I could convince him of the truth of my explanation. The hair of a sloth has a fluted or roughened surface, upon which nourishes a vegetable a form of algae that gives the hair a distinctly green tinge. It is the same type of plant that one sees growing on rotten fences in England , and, of course, in the warm, damp atmosphere of the tropics it grows luxuriantly on the sloth's fur and gives him a wonderful protective colouring.

  This association between a vegetable and a mammal is quite unique.

  I found that the bad-tempered two-toed sloth was the easier to keep in captivity, for it lived quite happily on a diet of pawpaw, banana, sliced mango, as well as several varieties of leaves, including the ever-present hibiscus.

  But the three-toed would only feed on one kind of leaf and stubbornly refused all others, so that feeding was quite a problem. Being very primitive creatures sloths are able to go for long periods without food if they want to; the record appears to belong to a three toed specimen in a zoo that once fasted for a month without any ill-effects. They can also survive injuries which would prove fatal in any other animal, and can even take large doses of poison without apparently suffering any harm. This ability to survive injuries, as well as their slow and deliberate movements, makes them strangely reptilian creatures.

  Oviedo , in his discourse on sloths, makes the following statement regarding their cries: Their voice is much differing from other beasts, for they sing onely in the night, and that continually from time to time, singing ever sixe notes one higher than another, so falling with the same, that the first note is the highest, and the other in a baser tune, as if a man should say. La, Sol, Fa, Mi, Re, Ut, so this beast saith, Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha… even so the first invention of musicke might see me by the hearing of this beast, to have the first principles of that science, rather than by any other thing in the world.

&n
bsp; Now I can say nothing regarding the operatic achievements of Oviedo's sloths, but I know that my specimens did not make any noise that tallied with his description. I spent many long hours in my hammock at night, refraining from sleep, in the hopes that they would start practising scales, but they were as silent as giraffes. The two-toed made the loud hissing noise already referred to when it was annoyed, and the three-toed made a similar, though fainter, sound, supplementing it occasionally with a dull moaning grunt, as though it was in agony. Judging from these sounds alone I would hesitate to conjecture with Oviedo that the art of music was derived from the song of the sloth.

  In my absorption with the Bradypodidae family I had completely forgotten about the moonshine uwarie. When Bob reminded me that in three days we were due to return to Georgetown to deposit our cargo, I suddenly realized that it might be my last chance of getting one of these opossums, so I hastily raised its market price once again and dashed up and down the main street of Adventure interviewing anyone who seemed to have any sort of hunting qualifications, imploring them to get me a moonshine uwarie. But when the day of our departure arrived no one had brought me a specimen, and I was sunk in the deepest gloom.

  To get our collection down to the steamer jetty we had hired a massive, elongated cart drawn by a dejected-looking horse.

  It drew up in the road outside our hut, and Bob and I proceeded to load it up with our cages of creatures. There were boxes full of teguxins and iguanas, small bags full of snakes and sacks full of anacondas, cages of rats and monkeys and sloths, Cuthbert peeting wildly from behind bars, cages of small birds and great tins of fish. Lastly, there was the pungent Didelphys opossums' box. The cart, piled high with this cargo, creaked and rattled off down the road. We had sent Ivan on ahead so that he could arrange a place for the animals on the upper deck of the steamer.

  Bob and I walked slowly alongside the cart as it rattled down the white dusty road, dappled with the shadows of the trees that grew alongside. We waved good-bye to the various inhabitants who had come out of their houses in order to wish us a good journey. Presently we passed the last houses of Adventure and started down the long stretch of road that led to the river bank and the jetty. We were half-way to the river when we heard someone shouting in the distance, and turning round I saw a small figure running down the road after us, frantically waving one hand.

  "Who's that?" inquired Bob.

  "I don't know. Is he waving to us?"

  "Must be … there's no one else on the road."

  The cart rumbled on its way, and we stood and waited.

  "He seems to be carrying something," said Bob.

  "Maybe we left something behind?"

  "Or something fell" off the cart."

  "I shouldn't think so."

  We could see now that it was a small East Indian boy who was pursuing us; he came down the road at a jog-trot, his long black hair flapping around his shoulders, and a broad grin on his face. In one hand he carried a length of string to which was attached something small and black.

  "I believe he's got an animal," I said, starting up the road to meet him.

  "Good Heavens, not more animals," groaned Bob.

  The boy came to a panting halt in front of me and held up the string. On the end dangled a small black animal with pink feet, a pink tail, and a pair of George Robey eyebrows in cream-coloured fur, elevated in permanent surprise above a pair of fine dark eyes. It was a moonshine uwarie.

  When my enthusiasm had died down somewhat. Bob and I searched our pockets for money to pay for the opossum, and then we realized that Ivan had got all our small change. But the boy was quite willing to walk the odd half-mile to the jetty for his money, so we set off. We had not gone far when an awful thought struck me: "Bob, we've got nothing to put this in," I said, indicating the dangling opossum.

  "Won't it be all right like that until we get to Georgetown ?"

  "No, I'll have to get a box for it. I can rig up a cage on board."

  "And where are we going to get a box from?"

  "I'll have to go back to the shop for one."

  "What, go back all that way? The steamer's due in any minute now; you'll miss it if you go back."

  As if to add weight to his words there came the distant hootings of the steamer from down the river. But I had already started to run back to Adventure.

  "Hold it up till I get back," I yelled.

  Bob gave a despairing gesture with his arms and then set off at a brisk trot towards the jetty. I fled back to Adventure and staggered into the shop, imploring the startled shopkeeper for a box. With commendable presence of mind he asked no questions, but merely tipped a host of canned goods out on to the floor and handed me the box they had been in. I rushed out of the shop and was well down the road before I noticed that the East Indian boy had accompanied me. He padded up alongside me and grinned.

  "Give me the box, Chief," he said.

  I was only too glad to let him carry it, for the opossum, annoyed by all this unaccustomed activity, was getting belligerent and trying to climb up the string and bite me.

  The boy carried the box on his head, while I ran along juggling wildly with the opossum. The road was hot and dusty, and I was pouring with sweat; several times I was tempted to stop and get my breath, but each time I was spurred on by a hoot from the steamer.

  I rounded the last corner almost dead-beat, and saw the steamer lying alongside the jetty, a churning mass of foam around her, and a gesticulating crowd at the gangplank that included Bob, Ivan, and the captain of the vessel. I dashed up the gangplank, clutching the opossum and the box to my bosom, and leant against the rail, gasping for breath. The gangplank was drawn in, the steamer hooted and shuddered as she drew away from the jetty, Ivan hurled the necessary money across the gap to the little East Indian, and we were off up the river before I had fully recovered.

  "How they brought the moonshine uwarie from Ghent to Aix," said Bob, handing me a bottle of beer. "I really began to think you wouldn't make it. The captain was getting quite shirty. I think he thought I was being disrespectful to his uniform when I told him you had gone back for an uwarie."

  I unpacked the carpentry tools, and during our trip up the river I converted the box into a cage for the opossum. When it was ready I had the job of untying the string from around its waist. It opened its mouth and hissed at me in the usual friendly opossum manner, but I got it by the scruff of the neck and untied the string. While I was doing so I noticed that the skin of its belly, between the hind legs, was distended into a long sausage-shaped swelling and I thought that the noose round its waist might have damaged it internally. The real reason for this protuberance did not occur to me until later, when I examined it, and my prying fingers disclosed a long slit in the swelling, and, on parting the skin, I found myself looking into a pouch full of quivering pink babies. The opossum was furious at my violating the privacy other nursery and gave a loud, tinny screech of rage. When I had shown the babies to Bob and counted them (there were three, each half as long as my little finger) I put the apoplectic mother in her cage. She immediately sat up on her hind legs and examined her pouch with great care, combing the fur straight that I had disarranged and grumbling to herself. Then she ate a banana and curled up and went to sleep.

  I was immensely thrilled with my opossum family, and talked of nothing else all the way back to Georgetown . When we arrived we showed our collection to the excited Smith. I saved the opossums until last, as I felt sure he would be as thrilled with them as I was. I displayed them with great pride and complacency, but to my surprise Smith gave them a look of acute distaste.

  "What's the matter with them?" I asked, rather nettled.

  "They're lovely little animals, and I had a devil of a job getting them back here."

  Smith led me to a tier of five cages.

  "I've got a pair of moonshines in each of these cages," he said lugubriously. "I've had to stop buying them. They're as common as dirt round here."

  I thought of the p
rice I had paid for my opossum and the race I had run on her behalf. I sighed.

  "Oh,well," I said philosophically, "they might have been rare, and then I would have kicked myself for not getting any."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Big Fish and Turtle Eggs

  The southernmost area of Guiana is an oblong wedge of country bordered on two sides by the vast forests of Brazil and on the remaining side by the equally dense forests of Surinam. It is within these 40,000-odd square miles of country that you find the savannah lands of Guiana, the forest giving way to a rolling grassland covered with a scattering of orchard bush. One of the most important of these grassland areas is the Rupununi savannah, about five thousand square miles in size, and it was there that Bob and I decided to go on our return from Adventure, for the grasslands had many species of animal that were not found in the forested regions.

  Our departure for the Rupununi was altogether too hurried. I had decided that we would stay, if we could, with one Tiny McTurk who had a ranch at Karanambo in the middle of the savannah. So we went down to the offices of the Guiana Airways to find out about planes, for flying is the only really practical way of reaching the interior in Guiana; if you travelled overland or by canoe it would take you weeks to reach your destination, and, fascinating though such a journey might be, we had not the time. We found, to our consternation, that there was only one plane a fortnight calling at Karanambo, and that plane was due to leave on the morrow, which left us exactly twenty-four hours in which to pack, contact McTurk, and do a host of other things before we left. We purchased our tickets and spent a hectic day trying to do everything. I tried to contact McTurk to let him know that we were coming, but I could not get through.

  The rest of the day we spent trying to pack the essentials and yet keep the weight of our luggage below that allowed by the Airways. Some helpful people, who should have known better, told me that I need take only the barest essentials to the Rupununi with me; I was assured that there was a store at Karanambo at which I would be able to purchase such necessary things as nails, wire netting and the vital supplies of boxes to make cages from. Innocently I believed them and cut my luggage down to almost nothing.