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.

My First Durrell - An All Time Favourite for All Ages

My Family and Other Animals must have been my first Gerald Durrell. Having been raised in a somewhat similar fashion to what young Durrell experienced, I spent time observing the fauna around me - mainly frogs and ants - but, as the years wore on, I also got to keep and observe rabbits and cats and some birds. Apart from keeping creatures, I spent a good deal of time observing them (mainly Indian squirrels) in the "wild" - the boughs of a large network of bougainvillea. It was in such a setting that I often dipped into favourite chapters of the book.

There are absolutely memorable sequences in the book which I cannot ever forget not only for the sheer beauty of the language but also because they tickle every funny bone.

My inner world is still rich with the book right down from the opening chapters where the family is first sketch etched on memory. The setting is a drear and drab England and the family suddenly decides to leave - lock, stock and barrel - for Corfu. There is a delightful mother, two eccentric elder brothers, and one pimply sister. The Internet will inform you that the sister protested that description. So did at least one brother, to my knowledge. 

It was, apparently, Lawrence Durrell, the brother who was and went on to become a minor noise in literature, who chose where they were to go.  At that point in my life I lived a delicious Jekyll and Hyde existence - one me was a character in my version of one of the books in the Alexandria Quartet (Justine?). The other was a female Gerald Durrell. 

As a matter of fact, however, it is the Gerald book or parts thereof that form some school coursework. Alas. If you want to know why I have this reaction, visit an earlier blog post.

Of course, today, all sorts of things, on the Net, might colour your ability to relish his writings. I point you back to what I have to say in that regard in the link given above: "good writers tend to be vilified by the media..."

Corfu, the idyllic Greek island - I'd dearly love to visit it - came alive for me in My Family and Other Animals. As did the characters. Such as Gerald's tutor. Durrell's is an unforgettable description of a typical scholarly man. 

Of this menagerie, I most cherish the Turk who came to date Durrell's sister. It gained a special place in my heart in adulthood when I not only met a man who is so true to the stereotype Gerald portrayed but a whole tribe of such people! There is nothing such beings cannot do that is not perfect. I'm sorry to say it is perfectly miserable to have to spend time with such characters but the memory of the book helps me smile through it.

At length the Turk turned to Larry:
  'You write, I believe?' he said with complete lack of interest.
  Larry's eyes glittered. Mother, seeing the danger signs, rushed in quickly before he could reply.
  'Yes, yes' she smiled, 'he writes away, day after day. Always tapping at the typewriter'
  'I always feel that I could write superbly if I tried' remarked the Turk.
  'Really?' said Mother. 'Yes, well, it's a gift I suppose, like so many things.'
  'He swims well' remarked Margo, 'and he goes out terribly far'
  'I have no fear' said the Turk modestly. 'I am a superb swimmer, so I have no fear. When I ride the horse, I have no fear, for I ride superbly. I can sail the boat magnificently in the typhoon without fear'
  He sipped his tea delicately, regarding our awestruck faces with approval.
  'You see' he went on, in case we had missed the point, 'you see, I am not a fearful man.”

― My Family and Other Animals

 

Enchanting and hilarious!

There are some film versions of the story such as the one below:

THE DURRELLS IN CORFU on MASTERPIECE | Official Trailer

In future blog posts, I hope to tell you something of other books of his that I have read. And I would dearly love to reread those or something new of Gerald Durrell.