Bakebe, I soon found, was a good place for reptiles. Half a mile away was a deep broad river, and every so often a small boy would appear with a baby Broad-fronted Crocodile dangling from a noose of grass. On arrival I had had a pool constructed for the crocodiles, and I found very soon that I was forced to enlarge it. Every week I had a count of the inmates of the pool, as I had a shrewd suspicion that unless I did this I might be buying the same reptiles over and over again. These counts were exciting affairs which generally ended in the animal staff having bandaged fingers. It is astonishing how hard even a six-inch crocodile can bite when it puts its mind to it. Needless to say the staff did not look upon this duty with any enthusiasm: they considered it a most dangerous occupation, and always tried to shirk it if they could.
One day the staff had been more dilatory than usual over their duties and so, more as a punishment than anything, I told them to go and count the crocodiles. Presently I heard a loud wail, followed by a crashing sound and a splash. Hurrying out I found chaos reigning at the pooclass="underline" Daniel, in climbing the fence, had slipped and fallen against it, and the entire side, not having been designed to withstand this sort of treatment, had given way. Daniel had then completed the destruction by rolling into the pool, and thus scaring some forty baby saurians out of the water, up on to the bank, and so out of the broken fence. When I arrived the ground was covered with crocodiles. They scuttled in all directions with great speed and agility, their mouths open threateningly. The Africans, who were unshod, were also moving with speed and agility. I yelled for reinforcements, and the household staff rushed from the kitchen to join in the chase, and they were followed by the bird staff from the house. In times of crisis such as this, everyone, no matter what his station or job, was called upon to lend a hand. Well in the rear, upholding the Englishman’s traditional reputation for calmness, came John, in his normal slow and unhurried manner. By the time he arrived on the scene most of the reptiles had taken cover in the surrounding undergrowth. Peering round he could only see one or two crocodiles in sight, and so naturally wanted to know what all the shouting and fuss was for.
“I thought all the crocs had escaped,” he said aggrievedly. “That’s why I came down.”
As if in answer, five crocodiles appeared out of the grass and converged about his feet. John looked at them broodingly for a minute, unaffected by the cries of alarm from the bird staff, and then he bent down and, picking one carefully up by the tail, he waved it at me.
“Here’s one, old boy,” he called.
“Don’t hold it like that, John,” I called, “it will turn . . ”
Acting as if under instructions the tiny reptile curved itself up and fastened its jaws on John’s finger. To his credit let it be said that not a sound escaped him; he shook the reptile free, not without some effort, and backed away from the battle area.
“I don’t think I will join in after all, if you don’t mind,” he said, sucking his fingers, “ I am supposed to be a bird man.” He retired to the hut and fastened an enormous bandage round his finger, while the rest of us spent a hot and painful hour rounding up the remaining crocodiles, and mending the fence.
This incident was the beginning of a whole row of irritating episodes in John’s life, all of which involved reptiles. He insisted that all these episodes took place at my instigation: before my return from Eshobi, he said, he had led a happy and reptile-free existence. As soon as I appeared on the scene the reptile world, so to speak, converged on him. John was not afraid of snakes, but he treated them with caution and respect and, while able to appreciate their beauty from afar, he did not want them on too intimate a footing with him. And so the fact that, for a short time, reptiles in general and snakes in particular seemed to find him irresistible, was a source of considerable annoyance to him. Not long after the escape of the crocodiles John’s finger was healing nicely, and the second episode occurred.
I was just leaving the hut one day to go and examine some traps I had set, when a man arrived with a wicker fish-trap full of water-snakes. Now these snakes, I was fairly sure, were non-poisonous. Even if venomous they would only be mildly so. As I was in a hurry I purchased the creatures and pushed them into an empty kerosene tin and placed a plank on top, meaning to attend to them on my return. When I got back that evening I found that the carpenter had removed the plank to convert it into a cage, and all the water-snakes had disappeared. As this had happened in the open I presumed that the reptiles had dashed back to the forest, so, beyond lecturing the carpenter on carelessness, I did nothing. Half an hour later John was doing some moving in the bird section, and on lifting up a large and heavy cage was startled to find five fat water-snakes coiled up beneath it. Unfortunately, in his surprise, he let fall one end of the cage, which landed on his instep. There followed a hectic chase, during which John had to move most of his bird-cages as the reptiles slid from one to the other with great rapidity. John was not amused, and his short soliloquy on the reptile kingdom (in which he included me) was a joy to listen to.
A few days later a panting boy rushed up from the village and informed me that there was a snake in a banana tree, and would I go and catch it. It so happened that the entire staff was out on various errands, and so John was the only one to whom I could appeal for help. Very reluctantly he left his bird feeding and accompanied me down the hill-side. At the village we found a crowd of about fifty people round a banana tree which grew at the back of one of the huts, and with much shouting they pointed out the snake to us. It was coiled in and out of a very large bunch of bananas at the top of the tree, and it surveyed us with a glittering eye. John asked me if it was poisonous, and I replied that, so far as I could see, it was a tree viper of sorts, and probably quite poisonous enough to make things interesting should it bite anyone. John retreated as far as the crowds would let him, and asked how I proposed to capture it. As far as I could see the best way was to cut down the bunch of bananas with the snake inside, and so we carefully ringed the area in which the fruit would fall, with the smallest mesh net we possessed, and I stationed John on the outside of this, armed with a stick to repel the snake should it try to get away. Then I borrowed a machete off a bystander, and asked the crowd if the owner of the tree would mind my cutting down the unripe fruit. Several voices assured me that he would not mind at all, and it was only later, when the real owner turned up, that I found out he objected very strongly and to the tune of several shillings. However, I approached the tree swinging my machete in a professional manner. The crowd had now increased considerably, and we were surrounded by a solid wedge of humanity all anxious to watch the white man’s snake- catching methods. When I discovered that I could not reach the bananas to cut the stem, they were all greatly amused.