N’Pongo, of course, did not leave the guest-room in the condition that he found it, but this was only to be expected. Although his manners were exemplary, he was only a baby and could not be expected automatically to assume civilized behaviour because he was living in the house. So the guestroom, when he left it, bore numerous traces of his presence; on one wall, for instance, was something that resembled a map of Japan drawn by one of the more inebriated ancient mariners. This was nicely executed in scarlet and was due to the fact that I had thought N’Pongo might like some tinned raspberries. He had liked them, and his enthusiasm at this new addition to his diet has resulted in the map of Japan. There was also straw. Next to paraffin, I know of no other commodity that manages to worm its way—in a positively parasitic fashion—into every nook and cranny before you are aware of it. For months after N’Pongo’s sojourn in our guest-room we were apologizing to guests for the floor which, in spite of hoovering, looked like a sixteenth-century alehouse. There was also the fact that the handle on the door drooped at rather a depressed angle since N’Pongo, after receiving his meal, had attempted to follow me out of the room. Knowing that the handle by some magical means opened and closed the door, but not knowing exactly how to manipulate it, he had merely pulled it downwards with all his strength. As I tried, unsuccessfully, to bend the handle back into position again, I reflected that N’Pongo was only about two years old and that his strength would increase in proportion to his size.
One of the things which particularly interested me about him was his different approach to a problem or a situation. If, for example, a baby chimpanzee is used to being brought out of its cage, on being reincarcerated it will carry on like one of the more loquacious heroines in a Greek tragedy, tearing its hair, rolling with rage on the floor, screaming at the top of its voice, and drumming its heels on every available bit of woodwork. N’Pongo was quite otherwise. Although deploring it, he would accept the necessity of being locked up again in his cage. He would try his best to divert you from this course of action, but when he realized that it had become inevitable he would submit with good grace. His only protest would be a couple of sharp and faintly peevish screams as he saw you disappear, whereas the average chimpanzee of his age and with his background would have gone on having hysterics for a considerable length of time. Owing to his attractive appearance and disposition, his good manners, and his very well-developed sense of humour, N’Pongo was in a very short space of time the darling of the zoo. Every fine afternoon he was brought out on to the lawn in front of the yew hedge, and there he would show off to his admirers, either lolling in the grass with a bored expression on his face, or, with a wicked gleam in his eye, working out how he could pose for his photograph to be taken by some earnest visitor and then rush forward at the crucial moment, grasp the unfortunate person’s leg, and push it from under him—a task that gave him immense amusement and generally resulted in the visitor sustaining a slipped disc and having an excellent picture of a completely empty section of lawn.
Within twelve months N’Pongo had almost doubled his size, and I felt it was now time to try, by fair means or foul, to obtain a mate for him. Unless they lack finances, I have no use for zoos that acquire animals purely for exhibition and make no effort to provide them with a mate; this applies particularly to apes. The problem does not arise while they are young, for they accept the human beings around them as their adopted, if slightly eccentric, family. Then comes the time when they are so powerful that you do not, if you have any intelligence, treat them in the same intimate way. When a gorilla or chimpanzee or an orang-utan at the age of three or four pulls your legs from under you, or jumps from a considerable height onto the back of your neck, it tests your stamina to the full and is done because you are the only companion with whom he can play. If he is left on his own, and is a nice-natured ape, he will try to play the same games with you when he is eleven or twelve; this means a broken leg or a broken neck. So if this friendly, exuberant animal is kept on his own and deprived of both the company of his own kind and that of human beings, you can hardly be surprised if he turns into a morose and melancholy creature. Not wanting to see N’Pongo degenerate into one of those magnificent but sad and lonely anthropoids that I have seen in many zoos (including some that had ample resources for providing a mate), I thought the time had come to try to procure a wife for N’Pongo, even though I knew that our funds would probably not stretch that far.
I telephoned the dealer from whom we had gotten N’Pongo and asked him about the possibilities of obtaining a female gorilla. He told me he had just been offered one, a year or so younger than N’Pongo, but now, owing to the political situation in Africa, the price had increased and he was asking fifteen hundred pounds. There followed two days of soulsearching. I knew we could not afford that amount of money in a lump sum, but we might be able to do it if it were spread over a period. Once again I telephoned the dealer and asked him whether he would consider letting us have the animal on instalment terms. To his credit and to my relief he agreed and said that his representative would bring her over to Jersey in a week’s time.
The whole zoo waited for that day with bated breath. I, prompted by a slightly acrimonious conversation with my bank manger, spent the week by having a collecting box made, over which hung the notice: ‘We have bought Nandy on the instalment plan. Please help us to keep up the instalments.’ So Nandy arrived, crouched in a crate that I would have considered small for a squirrel. She, like N’Pongo, appeared to be in perfect condition: her fur was glossy, she was fat, and her skin had a sheen like satin, but at first sight of her it was her eyes that impressed me most. N’Pongo’s eyes, as 1 have said, were small and deep set, calculating and full of humour. Nandy’s eyes were large and lustrous, and when she looked sideways she showed the whites of them; but they were frightened eyes that did not look at you squarely. They were the eyes of an animal that had little experience of human beings, but even that limited experience had given her no reason to trust or respect them. When we released her from her cage, I could see the reason; right across the top of her skull was a scar which must have measured six or seven inches in length. Obviously, when she was being caught, some over-enthusiastic and intrepid human being had given her a blow with a machete which had split her scalp like a razor slash. It must have been a glancing blow or her skull would have been split in two. With such an introduction to the human race, you could hardly blame Nandy for being a little antisocial. This great slash was by now completely healed, and there was only the long white scar to be seen through the hair of her head, which reminded me of the curious imitative and quite unnecessary partings that so many Africans carve in their hair with the aid of a razor.
We kept Nandy in a separate cage for twenty-four hours, so that she could settle down. The cage was next to N’Pongo’s, to enable her to see her future husband but she evinced as little interest in him as she evinced in us. If you tried to talk to her and looked directly at her face, her eyes would slide from side to side, meeting yours only for a sufficient length of time to judge what your next action might be. Eventually, deciding that the wire between herself and us rendered us comparatively harmless, and preferring not to look at us, she did turn her back. She had such a woebegone, frightened face that one longed to be able to pick her up and comfort her, but she had been too deeply hurt, and this was the last thing she would have appreciated. It would take us, I reckoned roughly, at least six months to gain her confidence, even with the example of the pro-human N’Pongo.