These swimming lessons, as I say, were to be seen very frequently, and were agony to watch, for not only was the terror of the pups so piteous, but I was always convinced that the bulls might go too far and actually drown one of them. But the babies appeared to have the elasticity of mind and body that allowed them to survive these savage swimming lessons, and none of them seemed any the worse.[195]
The adults spent ninety per cent of the day sleeping, and only occasionally the young bulls and cows would venture into the water, but it was not until evening that the colony as a whole went swimming. As the sun sank lower and lower, a restlessness would prevail throughout the colony, and presently the females would hump themselves down[196] to the water's edge, and the water ballet would begin. First two or three cows would enter the shallows and start swimming up and down, slowly and methodically. For some time the bull would watch them in a lordly manner, and then he would lift his huge bulk and shoulder his way into the surf with the air of a heavyweight boxer entering the ring. There he would pause and survey the sinuous shapes of his wives before him, while the foam made an Elizabethan ruff[197] of white round his fat neck. His wives, desperately trying to get him to join in their game, would tumble and curve in the water ahead, their coats now gleaming and black with sea-water. Then, suddenly, the bull would submerge, his portly form disappearing beneath the water with a speed and grace that was startling. His blunt, snub-nosed head would appear between the bodies of his wives, and the entire picture would change. Whereas before the females' movements had been slow, gentle curvings of the body on the surface and beneath the water, now the tempo of their play quickened, and they would close in round the bull, making him the focal point of their game. Their movements as smooth as a flow of oil, they would curve over and under him, so that he was like a stocky maypole[198] with the slim, swift ribbons of female seals drifting and fluttering around him. He would sit there with his massive head and neck out of the water, peering with supreme smugness into the sky, while his wives formed a whirlpool around him, weaving and gliding faster and faster, demanding his attention. Suddenly he would yield and, bending his head, he would open his mouth and bite playfully at a passing body. This was the signal for the ballet proper to begin.
The females' arrow-swift bodies and the bulk of the male would entwine like a gleaming black plait, curving and twisting through the water, assuming the most graceful and complicated shapes like a pennant whipped by the wind.
Occasionally one of the young, unattached bulls would attempt to join one of these family groups in their play, and immediately the old bull would forget his game. He would submerge and suddenly reappear at the young bull's side in a crumple of foam, uttering a sort of gurgling roar that had started beneath the surface. If the young bull was quick he would hurl himself sideways in the water, and the old bull's leap would be abortive and he would land on the water surface with a crack like a cannon going off, and the noise would roll and echo down the coast. Then it would be a question of who recovered first, the young bull from his awkward sideways leap, or the old bull from his belly-splitting charge.[199] If the old bull recovered first he would seize the younger one by the neck and they would roll and thrash in the water, roaring and biting in a tidal wave of foam, while the females glided round them watching lovingly the progress of the battle. Eventually the young bull would break free from the savage grip of his adversary and plunge beneath the waves with the old bull in hot pursuit. But in swimming under water the young bull would have the slight advantage that he was not so bulky and therefore slightly faster, and he would generally escape. The old bull would swim pompously back to his wives and squat in the water, staring grandly up into the sky while they swam round him, reaching their pointed faces out of the water to kiss him, gazing at him with their huge melting eyes in an ecstasy of admiration and love.
By this time the sun would have sunk into a sunset of pink, green and gold, and we would make our way back to camp to crouch shivering over the fire, while in the distance, carried by the night wind, steady and bitterly cold, we could hear the noises of the seals, belching and roaring and splashing in the black and icy waters along the empty coast.
Chapter Four
THE BULBOUS[200] BEASTS
They did not remain long under water, but rising, followed us with outstretched necks, expressing great wonder and curiosity.
After we had spent some ten days filming the fur seals, I decided that, reluctant though I was to leave these beautiful and fascinating animals, we really ought to move on and try and locate the elephant seals before they left the peninsula in their southward migration. So, for the next four days, we drove to and fro about the peninsula searching for the elefanteria, and seeing a variety of wild-life, but no elephant seals.
I was amazed and delighted at the numbers of creatures we saw on the Valdes Peninsula. When I thought that, a few miles away across the isthmus, lay hundreds of miles of scrub-land which we had driven through without seeing a single living creature, and yet on the peninsula life abounded, it seemed incredible. It was almost as if the peninsula and its narrow isthmus was a cul-de-sac[201] into which all the wild-life of Chubut had drained and from which it could not escape. I wish that it were possible for the Argentine Government to make the whole peninsula into a wild-life sanctuary, for which it seems to have been designed by nature. To begin with you have a wonderful cross-section of the Patagonian fauna, all concentrated in a limited area, and most of it very easy to see. Secondly the whole area could be easily and effectively controlled by virtue of the narrow isthmus connecting it to the mainland; a check point on this could keep an adequate control on the people who entered and left the area, and keep an eye out for the sort of "sportsmen" (of which there are some in every country throughout the world) who would think it fun to chase guanaco in fast cars, or pepper the bull fur seals with buckshot.
In our search for the elefanteria we covered a lot of the peninsula, and the commonest bird we saw was undoubtedly the martineta, a species of tinamu.[202] It is a plump, partridge-shaped little bird, about the size of a bantam. Its plumage is a rich array of autumn browns, speckled and streaked with golds, yellows and creams in an intricate and lovely pattern. Its cheeks are a pale cream colour, with two black stripes showing up well on this background, one running from the corner of the eye to the neck and the other running from the edge of the beak to the neck. On its head there is an elongated crest of dark feathers, which curves like a half-moon over its head. It has large, dark eyes, and a general air of innocent hysteria.
195
none of them seemed any the worse – evidently none of them suffered from the ill effects of their swimming lesson
196
would hump themselves down – would move down, proceeding with the help of humping their backs (cf. the description of the elephant seals manner of movement on p. 78)
197
Elizabethan ruff – a kind of collar worn in the 16th century, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. It was made of white material, stiffly starched and standing up in folds touching each other
198
maypole – a high pole decorated with ribbons, flowers, etc., set up in the open for dancing round on May day, the first of May, celebrated in England as a spring festival
199
belly-splitting charge – the leap taken by the old bull in charging the young one, which ended in his hurting his belly (note the author's device of alluding ironically to current idiomatic expressions, here to
200
bulbous – shaped like a bulb, an enlarged, spherical termination of stem in certain plants, such as the onion, tulip or lily
201
cul-de-sac ['kulde'saek] (Fr.) – a passage or street with an opening at one end only, from which there is no escape
202
tinamu (or tinamou) [ti'na:mu:] – a South American bird resembling a quail (a game bird of America, Europe, Asia and Africa, also called