The Overloaded Ark - Cameroon's Birds and Beasts

Gerald Durrell is a childhood favourite. I've enjoyed many of his books on animals and you will too. When trapped indoors for ages, what can be better than going on a six-month journey to Cameroon to get some animals for a zoo? Begin with Durrell's first book, The Overloaded Ark. 

By Source, Fair use 

The Overloaded Ark is rich with descriptions of the country's landscapes and people. The book may be hard to find but if you take the trouble you will not regret your embarkation:

The ship nosed its way through the morning mist, across a sea as smooth as milk. A faint and exciting smell came to us from the invisible shore, the smell of flowers, damp vegetation, palm oil, and a thousand other intoxicating scents drawn up from the earth by the rising sun, a pale, moist- looking nimbus of light seen dimly through the mists. As it rose higher and higher, the heat of its rays penetrated and loosened the hold the mist had on land and sea. Slowly it was drawn up towards the sky in long lethargically coiling columns, and gradually the bay and the coastline came into view and gave me my first glimpse of Africa.

Wonderful illustrations enrich the book. So do try to find and read it. Also, it has a lot of humour - something that is good for us now more than ever. One of the most memorable characters in the book is a cigarette-smoking chimpanzee. 

I know that I visualized an ape about three years old, standing about three feet high. I got a rude shock when Chumley moved in.

He arrived in the back of a small van, seated in a huge crate. When the doors of his crate were opened and Chumley stepped out with all the ease and self-confidence of a film star, I was considerably shaken. Standing on his bowlegs in a normal slouching chimp position, he came up to my waist.He stood on the ground and surveyed his surroundings with a shrewd glance, and then he turned to me and held out one of his soft, pink-palmed hands to be shaken, with exactly that bored expression that one sees on the faces of professional hand shakers.

He seated himself in a chair, dropped his chain on the floor, and then looked hopefully at me. It was quite obvious that he expected some sort of refreshment after his tiring journey. I roared out to the kitchen for someone to make a cup of tea, for I had been warned that Chumley had a great liking for the cup that cheers.

As I poured the tea and milk into Chumeley’s mug and added three tablespoons of sugar, he watched me with a glittering eye and made soft “ ooing” noises to himself. I handed him the mug and he took it carefully in both hands. He tested the tea carefully with one lip stuck out, to see if it was too hot. As it was, he sat there and blew on it until it was the right temperature and then he drank it down.

Chumley’s crate was placed about fifty yards from the hut (next to a great gnarled tree stump to which I attached his chain) From there he could get a good view of everything that went on in and around the hut, and as we were working he would shout comments to me and I would reply.That night, when I carried Chumley’s food and drink of tea out to him, he greeted me with loud “ hoo hoos” of delight, and jogged up and down, beating his knuckles on the ground. Before he touched his dinner, however, he seized one of my hands in his and carried it to his mouth.

With some trepidation I waited as he carefully put one of my fingers between his great teeth and very gently bit it. Then I understood: in the chimpanzee world, to place your finger between another ape’s teeth is a greeting and a sign of trust. To place a finger in such a vulnerable position shows your confidence in the other’s friendliness.

His manners were perfect. He would never grab his food and start guzzling, as the other monkeys did, without first giving you a greeting, and thanking you with a series of his most expressive “ hoo hoos.” Then he would eat delicately and slowly, pushing those pieces he did not want to the side of his plate with his fingers. His only breach of table manners came at the end of a meal, for then he would seize his empty mug and plate and hurl them as far as possible.