I sat there hardly daring to breathe, for the frog was perched on the extreme edge of the rock, overhanging the pool; he was alert and suspicious, his legs bunched ready to jump. If he was frightened, he would leap straight off the rock and into the dark waters, and then there would be no hope of catching him. For perhaps five minutes I remained as immobile as the rocks around me, and gradually, as he got used to the light, the Hairy Frog relaxed. Once he shifted his position slightly, blinking his moist eyes, and I was filled with panic thinking that he was going to jump. But he settled down again and I sighed with relief. As I sat there I was busy working out a plan: first, I had to switch the torch from my right to my left hand without disturbing him; then I had to lean forward until my hand was near enough to his fat body to risk grabbing at him. Shifting the torch caused me acute anguish, for he watched the manoeuvre with an alert and suspicious eye; when I had achieved the change I sat quietly for a few minutes to allow him to settle down again, then, with great caution, I moved my cupped hand slowly towards him. Inch by inch I moved until my hand was hanging just above him; then I took a deep breath and grabbed. As my hand swooped downwards the frog jumped, but he was not quite quick enough and my grasping fingers caught him by one slippery hind leg. But he was not going to give up his liberty without a fight, and he uttered a loud screaming gurk, and kicked out frantically with his free hind leg, scraping his toes across the back of my hand. As he did so, I felt as though it had been scratched with several needles, and on the skin of the back of my hand appeared several deep grooves which turned red with the welling blood. I was so astonished at this unexpected attack from a creature which I had thought to be completely harmless, that
I must have relaxed my hold slightly. The frog gave an extra hard kick and a wriggle, his moist leg slid through my fingers, there was a plop as he hit the water and the ripples danced. My Hairy Frog had escaped.
My heart, if I can so describe it, was too full for words. An extensive collection of lurid descriptive phrases which I had accumulated over the years seemed anaemic and inadequate to describe this catastrophe. I tried one or two, but they were a very weak indication of how I felt. After all this time I had come face to face with a Hairy Frog, after being told that it did not exist; after many hours of fruitless search, I had actually had the beast in my grasp, and then, through my own stupidity, had let it get away. I clambered on to a tall rock to see where my hunters had got to; I could see their lights flashing a quarter of a mile away down the valley, and I uttered the prolonged yodelling call that the hunters use to communicate with each other. When they answered me, I shouted that they were to hurry back, as I had found the beef we were looking for. Then I climbed down and examined the pool carefully. It was perhaps ten feet long and about five feet across at the widest point. It was fed and emptied through two very narrow channels among the rocks, and I decided that if we blocked these, and the frog was still in the pool, we stood a fair chance of recapturing him. When my panting hunters arrived I explained what had happened, and they clicked their fingers and groaned with annoyance upon learning that the frog had escaped. However, we set to work, and soon we had blocked the entrance and exit channels of the pool with piles of fiat stones. Then two of the hunters stood on the rocks and shone our battery of torches into the pool so that we could see what we were doing. First, I tested the depth of the water with the long handle of the butterfly net, and found that it was about two feet deep; the bottom of the pool was of coarse gravel and small stones, a terrain that provided ample hiding-places for the frog. Jacob, myself, and two hunters then removed all the garments we had on and slid into the icy water: Jacob and I at one end of the pool, and the two hunters at the other. Slowly we moved down towards each other, bent double, feeling with our fingers and toes in every crack, turning over every stone. Presently, when we had worked to the centre of the pool, one of the hunters gave a yelp of delight and grabbed wildly at something under the water, almost losing his balance and falling on his face.
'Na whatee, na whatee?' we all asked excitedly.
'Na flog,' spluttered the hunter, 'but 'e done run.'
'You no get hand?' inquired Jacob wrathfully through chattering teeth.
"E done run for Masa,' said the hunter, pointing in my direction.
As he spoke, I felt something moving near my bare foot, and I bent down and groped frantically under the water. At the same moment, Jacob uttered a shrill scream and dived under the water, and one of the hunters was frantically grabbing at something between his legs. My hand felt a smooth, fat body burrowing in the gravel near my toes, and I grabbed at it; at the same moment, Jacob reappeared above the water, spitting and gasping and waving one arm triumphantly, his hand clasped firmly round a fat frog. He splashed through the water towards me to show me his capture, and as he reached me I straightened up with my own prize caught in my cupped hands. I glanced hurriedly between my ringers and had a quick glimpse of the frog's thick thighs covered with a mat of the hair-like substance; it was a Hairy Frog. Then I looked at Jacob's capture, and found that he had caught one also. After congratulating each other, we cautiously placed out frogs in a deep, soft cloth bag, and tied up the mouth of it carefully. Just as we had done this, the hunter who had been groping wildly between his legs straightened up with a roar of delight, swinging yet another Hairy Frog by the leg.
Warmed and encouraged by our success, we plunged back into the pool once again and searched it carefully, but we found no more frogs. By now the rim of the eastern horizon was a pale powder blue, flecked with gold, and in the sky above us the remaining stars were flickering and dying as stripes of jade green spread across the sky. It was obviously too late to continue with our hunt, but I was well pleased with the results. As the Africans crouched on the rocks, laughing and chattering, smoking the cigarettes I had distributed, I dried myself, rather inadequately, with my handkerchief and put on my dew-soaked clothes. My head was aching savagely, partly, I think, because of the excitement of the capture, but principally owing to the party I had had with the Fon. However, with the glow of triumph enveloping me I cared not for the cold dampness of my clothes, nor for my aching head. The bag with the Hairy Frogs inside I dipped into the pool until it was sodden and cool, then I wrapped it in wet grass and placed it in the bottom of the basket.
As we reached the top of the hill, the sun rose above the distant mountains and flooded the world with a brittle, golden light. The long grass was bent and heavy with dampness, and a thousand tiny spiders had spun their nets among the stalks, and the nets had dredged up from the night a rich haul of dewdrops that shone white and ice blue in the sun. Dozens of great locusts leapt up from under our feet and sped over the grass in a whirring glitter of magenta wings; and some fat bumble bees, electric blue and as furry as bears, formed a humming choir over a group of pale yellow orchids growing in the shelter of a large rock. The air was fresh and cool, full of the scent of flowers, grass, earth, and dew. The hunters, happy in the knowledge that the night's activities had been successful, broke into song as they picked their way down the path in single file; a lilting Bafutian melody that they rendered with great verve; the staff joined in, and Jacob beat a gentle tattoo on a collecting tin by way of accompaniment. Thus we marched back to Bafut, singing loudly, Jacob working out more and more complicated rhythms on his improvised drum.