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 color, sticking up in tufts and spikes all over their bodies, and they had long, pink India rubber noses that whiffled 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 and 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 vomit; and, of course, as soon as they had thrown up, 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 hope that it would turn out to be something tasty.

On one occasion they had escaped from their basket, without my noticing, and had wandered around 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 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 around and around, 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 learned 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. 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 learned 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 for they would bite at anything and everything within reach.

At last I grew tired of having the Bandits falling out of their cage at every meal time, 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 opened the other door and put the food in; 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 probably 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 creature 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 and let somebody else 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 was sorry to see them go. I took a last look at them in their big zoo cage, and they appeared so innocent and sweet, trotting round on the sawdust, whiffling 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-by, and they looked so quiet and good that I poked my finger through the bars to scratch their heads for the last time. I really should 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.

 

 

 

Chapter Five

 

⇐ Предыдущая12345678910Следующая ⇒

Поделиться: