''It's quite extraordinary the soundness of their sleep. Do you know there was one naturalist who actually went and lay on top of an elephant seal without waking it?"
Jacquie surveyed the colossal animal in front of me.
"Rather him than me,"[220] she said.
"Apparently the females don't become sexually mature until they are two years old. Now those babies over there are this year's brood."
"This year's brood?" Jacquie interrupted in astonishment. "I thought they were about a year old."
"No, I should say they are four or five months old."
"How big are they when they're born, then?"
"Oh, about half that size, I should think."
"Good God!" said Jacquie with feeling. "Fancy giving birth to a thing that size."
"There you are," I said. "It just goes to show that there's always someone worse off than you are."
The elephant seal, as if in agreement, gave a deep, heart-rending sigh.
"Do you know that the intestine of an adult bull can measure six hundred and sixty-two feet?" I inquired.
"No, I didn't," said Jacquie, "and I think we'd all enjoy our sandwiches more if you refrained from divulging any more secrets of their internal anatomy."
"Well, I thought it would interest you."
"It does," said Jacquie, "but not when I'm eating. It's the sort of information I prefer to acquire between meals."
There were several things that struck one immediately about the elephant seals, once one had got over incredulity at their mere size. The first thing was, of course, their ridiculous hindquarters. The fur seal (which is really a sea lion) has the hind limbs well developed as legs, so that when they move they hoist themselves up on to all four legs and walk as a dog or a cat would. But in the elephant seal, which is a true seal, the hind limbs are minute and pretty useless, with stupid flippers that make it look as though the animal has had a couple of empty gloves attached to its rear end. When the creature moves all the propulsion comes from the front flippers, and the humping of the massive back, a slow, ungainly method of movement that was painful to watch.
There was quite a colour variation[221] among the herd. The old bull was a rich, deep slate-grey, tastefully speckled here and there with green, where some marine alga[222] was apparently growing on his tough hide. The young bulls and the cows were a much paler grey. The babies were not bald and leathery like their parents, but each was wearing a fine fur coat of moon-white hair, close and tight as plush. The adults had so many folds and wrinkles all over them that they looked rather as if they were in need of a square meal to fill out the creases, as it were, whereas the babies were so rotund and glossy they looked as though they all had just been blown up with bicycle pumps, and would, if they were not careful, take to the air.[223]
From the point of view of filming the elephant seal colony was, to say the least, difficult. All they wanted to do was sleep. The only real movement they made was to open and close their huge nostrils as they breathed, and occasionally one would shovel some shingle on to its back; but as there was no preliminary warning to this action it took me some time to get it on film. Sometimes one of them would hump itself forward, eyes tightly shut, burrowing its great nose through the shingle like a bulldozer. Even when I had got all these actions on film it still did not seem to me that the elephant seals were showing themselves to advantage;[224] they lacked action, which, after all, is one of the things necessary for a moving picture. One of the extraordinary things about these seals is the flexibility of the backbone, In spite of their bulk and vast quantities of blubber, they can bend themselves backwards, like a hoop, until the head touches the uplifted tail. How to get them to demonstrate this for me to film, when they were all lying about displaying the animation of a group of opium smokers,[225] was somewhat of a puzzle. At last, however, we were successful with the old bull, by the simple expedient of throwing handfuls of fine gravel on to his tail. The first handful made him stir slightly and sigh deeply, without opening his eyes. The second handful made him open his eyes and stare at us in mild surprise. With the third handful he raised his head, drew back his snout so that it wrinkled like a concertina,[226] opened his mouth and uttered a hissing roar, and then fell back on to the shingle as if exhausted by this effort and went back to sleep again.
Eventually, however, our bombardment got on his nerves. It did not, of course, hurt him, but a constant rain of shingle on your rear-end when you are trying to get to sleep can be extremely irritating. He suddenly became very wide awake and reared up so that he was like the letter J with his head high in the air, his mouth opened wide uttering the loud hissing roar, an oddly reptilian sound for such a monstrous mammal to make. Four times he reared up like this, and then, seeing that the display was having no detrimental effect on our morale,[227] he did what all seals do in moments of crisis: he burst into tears. Great, black tears oozed out of his eyes and trickled forlornly down his cheeks. He lowered himself full length on to the shingle, and proceeded to move backwards towards the sea, like a gargantuan[228] caterpillar, humping his body up with tremendous effort, the fat along his back rippling into waves as he moved. At last, with a final plaintive roar and another flood of tears, he backed into the water, and an incoming wave broke in a garland of white foam around his shoulders. The rest of the herd became alarmed at their lord and master's disappearance, and they all raised their heads and started to look at us uneasily. Then one of the babies panicked, and hunched its way down to the sea, tears streaming down its white face. This was the final straw,[229] and within a minute the whole herd was rushing seawards, looking like a flock of huge maggots[230] in pursuit of a cheese.
Sadly we packed up our equipment and started up the cliff, sadly because we had just completed our last task, and this meant that we must leave the peninsula with its wonderful animal life, and head back to Buenos Aires and the next stage of the expedition. As we made our way along the twilit[231] cliff path we saw the old bull elephant seal for the last time. His head appeared out of a wave, his dark eyes surveyed us puzzledly. He snorted, a reverberating noise that echoed along the cliffs and made his nose vibrate. Then, still watching us sadly, he sank slowly beneath the icy waters and disappeared.
Part Two
THE CUSTOMS OF THE COUNTRY
The plane taxied out across the darkened airfield to where the runway lay, between two strips of diamond-bright lights. Here it paused, revved up[232] its engine until every bone in the plane's metal body seemed to screech out in protest, and then suddenly rushed forward. The strip-lights fled past, and then suddenly we were airborne, the plane tipping from side to side like a slightly drunken swallow as it climbed higher and higher. Then, below me, Buenos Aires lay spread in the warm night like a chessboard of multicoloured stars. I unfastened my safety belt, lit a cigarette and lay back in my seat, feeling very mellow and full of farewell brandy. At last I was on my way to a place I had longed to visit, a place with a magical name: Jujuy.[233]
221
there was quite a colour variation – there was a considerable variation in color (note the current colloquial construction with
222
algae (
224
to show oneself to advantage – to allow to see one at one's best, in such a way as to bring out one's strong points
225
he animation of a group of opium smokers – no animation at all (opium smoking has the effect of reducing the smokers to a state of insensibility); cf. the Turkish bath simile on p, 75
227
morale – the mental state or condition of a body of men, especially of an army; the word is generally used in the meaning of 'high morale', i.e. courageous, determined conduct despite danger and privations
228
gargantuan – enormous, gigantic (from the name of Gargantua, a giant in Rabelais’ book
229
the final straw – the last straw, the final circumstance that makes the situation unbearable (the allusion is to the proverb ("It is the last straw that breaks the camel's back")
232
to rev up – to cause the engine to run quickly when first starting (the word was first used as a colloquial abbreviation of
233
Jujuy [d3u:'d3ai] – the northernmost province of Argentina, with a capital of the same name