Leaving the Tailor to watch the reptile, Yellow-Eyes and I tied the dogs up to a tree, and I bathed the bitch’s wounds. From midway down her back to her rump were seven long gashes, as though she had been sliced with a rather blunt knife. I had just finished with the dog when a cry from the Tailor to the effect that the Monitor was moving sent us all rushing back to the cliff. The reptile had advanced a few yards, but as soon as he saw us he retreated to his corner again. We made several attempts to throw a net over him, but there was no space to manoeuvre properly, and the net kept getting caught up on the rocks. There was only one thing to do, and that was to get above him and drop a noose over his head. Leaving the others with instructions to rush in and net him as soon as I had the rope round his neck, I crawled slowly over the rocks to a vantage point above him.
I had to move slowly and cautiously for the rocks were slippery with moisture where exposed, and the moss slid off the surface like slime under my feet. At length I reached the small promontory above our quarry and, squatting on my haunches, I fashioned a slip-knot at the end of a long thin cord. Then I lowered it towards the head of the reptile some six feet below me. In my excitement I did not fasten the loose end of the rope to anything, and then added to my stupidity by kneeling on the coil of rope . . . which made my downfall doubly ignominious.
Lowering the noose to within a foot of the lizard’s head I flipped it over very neatly and pulled it tight, feeling the rosy glow of pride that goes before a fall. As he felt the noose tighten the Monitor shot forward in a great wiggling dash that jerked the cord from my hands and whipped my knees from under me, so that I toppled over and slid down the rocks, in the most undignified position and with ever-increasing speed. In the brief moment before I landed, with a spine-shattering crash, in the miniature canyon below, I offered up a prayer that my descent would frighten the reptile into the nets. I had no desire to engage him in a wrestling match after seeing what he had done to the dog. Luckily, he was scared and tried to make a dash for it, and his fore quarters were enfolded in a heap of netting. The Tailor and Yellow-Eyes leapt forward on to his lashing tail and hind quarters and pulled the net over completely. As soon as he was well trussed up in sacking and cord I examined the bite on his neck, but I found that the dog’s teeth had only just broken the skin. These two giant lizards were a very welcome addition to the collection, principally because of their size. In the collection at Bakebe I had a number of youngsters, but they were insignificant in comparison. When they are young these Monitors are slim and neat, their skin a peculiar shade of greeny-black, thickly dotted with groups of bright golden-yellow spots. As they grow older the skin becomes a deep, dusty black, and the yellow spots fade and disappear until only a faint scattering of them remains. They were not difficult feeders, eating anything in the way of dead animals or birds. The things they adored above all else were eggs, and with the use of these delicacies they soon became quite tame, and allowed me to massage their rough backs and pull the dry flakes of skin off when they were sloughing.
When, much later, we returned to camp, I found the traps had yielded a mixed bag of birds, and to my delight it included two of the Ground Thrushes. Although it was so late I felt that the sooner John had these precious birds in his hands the better, so I packed them up and sent them off down the mountain with the Monitor. The carriers moaned and complained at being sent off at that hour, protesting that it would be dark very soon and that the lower slopes of the mountain were notorious for the size and ferocity of its leopards and the cunning and malignancy of its ju-jus. So I gave them an extra lantern to ward off these dangers, and watched them out of sight.
Later, while there was still enough light left to see by, I went for a stroll about half a mile from the camp, and presently I found that I was at the edge of a cliff about a hundred feet high. The tops of the trees that grew below were on a level with the top of the cliff, and their lower branches interlaced with the undergrowth growing there. By crawling to the edge of the cliff, in amongst the curling roots and twisted hedge of low growth, I found I was in an excellent position for, being on a level with the massive tree-tops that grew from below, it was as though I had suddenly been transported to the top layer of the forest. I concealed myself beneath a large bush, unhitched my field-glasses and scanned the leaves for a sign of life.
I lay there for a long time, but nothing happened. Faintly, far away down the mountain, I could hear some hornbills honking. Then I heard a faint rustle that seemed to come from somewhere behind me. I had half-turned to see what was making the noise when something landed with a crash of leaves in the bush under which I lay. I lay as still as possible and waited. For a few seconds there was silence, and then from above me came a loud, deep cry: “Oink! . . . Oink!”, and I realized that it was a troop of Mona guenons. For the next half-hour I was treated to the most delightful close-up of monkey life that anyone could wish for.
The monkey in the tree above me was presumably the leader, for he was a male of huge proportions. Having surveyed the forest below the cliff and seen no danger, he had uttered his “all clear” cry to the rest of the troop, and then he leapt from his bush above me and plummeted downwards like a stone over the edge of the cliff, hands and legs outstretched, to land among the top branches of a tree-top just opposite to where I was lying. He disappeared among the leaves for a few seconds, and then reappeared walking along a branch. When he reached a comfortable fork he seated himself, looked about him, and uttered a few deep grunts.
Immediately the bush above me swayed and shook as another monkey landed in it, and almost in the same movement leapt off again to drop down over the cliff into the tree-top where the old male was waiting. Their progression was very orderly: as one landed in the tree below another would arrive in the bush above me. I counted thirty adults as they jumped, and many of the females had young clinging to their bodies. I could hear these babies giving shrill squeaks, either of fear or delight, as their parents hurtled downwards. When the whole troop was installed in the tree they spread out and started to feed on a small black fruit that was growing there. They walked along the branches, plucking the fruit and stuffing it into their mouths, continuously glancing a-round them in the quick nervous way that all monkeys have. Some of the bigger babies had now unhooked themselves from their mothers’ fur and followed them through the trees uttering their plaintive cries of “Weeek! . . . Weeek!” in shrill, quavering voices. The adults exchanged comments in deep grunts. I saw no fights break out; occasionally a particularly fine fruit would be snatched by one monkey from the paws of a smaller individual, but beyond a yarring grunt of indignation from the victim, nothing happened to disturb their peaceful feeding.