Early the next morning two men arrived at the camp and said that they were the hunters that the chief had sent. I had them brought to the tent, and surveyed them suspiciously over my fried eggs. One was short and stocky, with a receding ape-like forehead and protruding teeth. His fat lower regions were draped in a sarong-like garment of green, covered lavishly with large orange and red flowers. The other was tall, very tall, and extremely thin. He stood there drooping artistically, drawing patterns in the dust with his long toes. His sarong was a tasteful combination of purple and white dots on a pink background.
“Good morning, Masa,” said the short one, displaying his teeth in an ingratiating grin.
“Good morning, Masa,” echoed the tall one, simpering at me.
“Good morning. Are you the hunters the chief sent?”
“Yes, sah,” they chorused.
“What are your names?”
“Sah?”
“What they dey call you?” translated Pious from behind me.
“Elias, sah,” said the short one in his husky voice.
“Andraia, sah,” said the tall one, wriggling with embarrassment, and draping a long arm over his companion’s shoulders.
“Pious,” said I, “ask them if they will be my hunters. I will pay them one and six a day, and they will get dash for every animal they catch. If it’s an animal I want very much, then the dash will be big. If it’s some other kind of animal then the dash will be smaller.”
Pious listened carefully, his head on one side, then turned to the hunters and translated rapidly into pidgin-English.
“Masa say: you go be hunter man for him, eh? Masa, he go pay you one shilling and sixpence every day you go take Masa and go for bush, eh? If you go catch beef kind Masa de like plenty, he go dash you fine. If beef no be good Masa go dash you small. You de hear?”
“We hear,” chorused the hunters, grinning.
“You agree?”
“We agree.”
“They agree, sar,” said Pious to me, unnecessarily.
Then I showed them the pictures, and they responded well to them, “Eh . . . aehhing!” as the chief had done, and telling me where each kind of animal was to be found. With unerring accuracy they recognized every picture I showed them. Then I produced a picture of a camel, and asked innocently if it was to be found locally. They stared at it for a long time, chattered away to each other, and at last admitted that they had never seen one. My spirits rose, as I had half expected them to say that camels could be found in large herds within half a mile of the village, such is the black man’s enthusiasm for helping the white. I told them to return the next morning, dashed them some cigarettes, and watched them walk off down the path with considerable misgivings, Elias’s fat- bottomed waddle in his gaudy sarong, and Andraia mincing delicately along beside him. I had never seen two people look less like hunters in my life, and the more I thought about them the less faith I had in their abilities. I was to be very pleasantly surprised, for they turned out to be very good hunters indeed. Elias had the courage, while Andraia had the quick-wittedness for prompt spur-of- the-moment action.
With them I was to spend many days tramping through the forest, and innumerable nights crawling through the undergrowth in the anaemic glow of the torches, searching for the lesser denizens of the bush. In a twenty-mile radius of the village they knew every path, every little stream and waterfall, almost every bush. They would melt through the thickest tangle of undergrowth with ease, and not a sound betrayed their presence, while I, hot and flat-footed, stumbled behind with a noise like a bulldozer in action. They showed me how to mark a trail, and how to follow one, and the first time I tried I was lost within ten minutes. They showed me which fruit in the bush was good to eat, and which was unpalatable, and which twigs to chew to ease your thirst without poisoning yourself.
The forest is not the hot, foetid, dangerous place some writers would have you believe; neither is it so thick and tangled as to make it impenetrable. The only place where you get such thick growth is on a deserted native farm, for here the giant trees have been felled, letting the sunlight in, and in consequence the shorter growth has a chance and sprawls and climbs its way all over the clearing, upwards towards the sun. In the deep forest the low growth has only two methods of reaching the sun: either it has to shoot upwards, smooth and branchless as a rocket-stick for hundreds of feet until it can thrust its leafy top through the canopy of trees above, or it can crawl and wind and twist its way up the giant tree trunks, and eventually arrive at the topmost branches and daylight.
As you enter the forest, your eyes used to the glare of the sun, it seems dark and shadowy, and as cool as a butter-dish. The light is filtered through a million leaves, and so has a curious green aquarium-like quality which makes everything seem unreal. The centuries of dead leaves that have fluttered to the ground have provided a rich layer of mould, soft as any carpet, and giving off a pleasant earthy smell. On every side are the huge trees, straddling on their great curling buttress roots, their great smooth trunks towering hundreds of feet above, their head foliage and branches merged indistinguishably into the endless green roof of the forest. Between these the floor of the forest is covered with the young trees, thin tender growths just shaken free of the cradle of leaf- mould, long thin stalks with a handful of pale green leaves on top. They stand in the everlasting shade of their parents ready for the great effort of shooting up to the life-giving sun. In between their thin trunks, rambling across the floor of the forest one can see faint paths twisting and turning. These are the roads of the bush, and are followed by all its inhabitants.
There is no life to be seen in the great forest, except by chance, unless you know exactly where to look for it. The only sounds are the incessant rasping zither of the cicadas, and a small bird who would follow you as you walked along, hiding shyly in the undergrowth and every now and then startling you with a soft, plaintive, questioning “Whooo . . . weeee?” Many times I stalked this elusive bird and heard it call from within a few feet of me, but never once did I catch a glimpse of it.
In some places where the native paths were wide the foliage overhead was broken, and through the tatter of leaves one could see patches of blue sky. The sun slanted down through these holes in the jungle covering, turning the leaves to gold, and barring the path with a hundred misty sunbeams, through which the butterflies played. Two species of these forest butterflies became favourites of mine, and on every walk I looked for them, and was rewarded by a glimpse of one or the other. The first was a small pure white insect, the delicate frosty white of snow on a window, and its flight was a joy to watch. It would rise in the air like a piece of thistledown caught in a sudden eddy of wind, and would then let itself fall earthwards, twisting and pirouetting like a miniature ballet dancer. On some paths, generally where they crossed a stream, you could encounter twenty or thirty of these delightful insects sitting motionless round the edge of a pool. Disturbed, they would rise in the air, slowly twisting and turning, gliding and falling, like a cloud of white wood ash against the green of the forest. Then they would drift back to their resting place, skimming low over the surface of the water, reflected in its darkness.