When the hunters arrived we set out through the mist-whitened forest to a fresh series of trees. Refreshed by a night's sleep, and by our capture of anIdiurus the day before, we went about the laborious smoking process with a great deal more enthusiasm. But by midday we had investigated ten trees and found nothing. We had by this time reached a section of the forest where the trees were of enormous size, even for the West African forest. They stood well apart from each other, but even so their massive branches interlocked above. The trunks of these trees were, in most cases, at least fifteen feet in diameter. They had great buttress roots – growing out from the base of the trunks like supporting walls of a cathedral, each well over ten feet high where it joined the trunk, and with a space of a good-sized room between each flange. Some of them had wound round them massive, muscular-looking creepers as thick as my body. We made our way through the giant trunks, and came presently to a dip in the level forest floor, a small dell in which stood one of these enormous trees, more or less by itself. At the edge of the dell the hunters paused and pointed.
'Na dis big stick get hole too much, sah,' they said.
We approached the trunk of the tree, and I saw that there was a great arched rent in, the wood, between two of the flanges; this hole was about the same size and shape as a small church door. I paused at the entrance to the hole and looked up: the tree-trunk towered above me, shooting up towards the sky smooth and branchless for about two hundred feet. Not a stump, not a branch broke the smooth surface of that column of wood. I began to hope that there would be nothing inside the tree, for I could not see for the life of me how anyone was going to climb up to the top and put nets over the exit holes, if any, I walked into the hollow of the tree as I would walk into a room, and found there was plenty of space; the sunlight filtered gently in through the entrance, and gradually my eyes became accustomed to the dim light. I peered upwards, but a slight bend in the trunk prevented me seeing very far. I tested the sides of the tree and found them composed of rotten wood, soft and spongy. By kicking with my toes I found it was quite easy to make footholds, and I laboriously climbed up inside of the trunk until I was high enough to crane round the corner. The trunk stretched up as hollow as a factory chimney, and just as big. At the very summit of the tree there was a large exit hole, and through it a shaft of sunlight poured. Then, suddenly, I nearly released my rather precarious hold with excitement, for I saw that the top part of the trunk was literally a moving carpet of Mums. They slid about on the rotten wood as swiftly and silently as shadows, and when they were still they disappeared completely from sight, so perfectly did they match the background. I slithered to the ground and made my way out into the open. The hunters looked at me expectantly.
'Na beef for inside, Masa?' asked one. 'Yes. Na plenty beef for inside. You go look.' Chattering excitedly, they pushed and scrambled their way into the inside of the tree; some idea of its size may be gained from the fact that the three hunters, Peter, the tree-climber, and Jacob could all fit comfortably into its spacious interior. I could hear their ejaculations of astonishment as they saw the Idiurus, and sharp words being exchanged when someone (I suspected Jacob) trod on somebody else's face in his excitement. I walked slowly round the tree, searching the trunk for any foot or handholds on the bark which would enable Peter to climb to the top, but the bark was as smooth as a billiard ball. As far as I could see, the tree was unclimbable, and I damped the hunters' gaiety by pointing this out to them when they came out of the trunk. While we all sat on the ground and smoked and discussed the matter, Jacob prowled around the dell, scowling ferociously at the trees, and presently he came over to us and said that he thought he had found a way in which Peter could get to the top. We followed him across the dell to its extreme edge, and there he pointed to a tall, thin sapling whose top just reached one of the great branches of the main tree. Jacob suggested that Peter should shin up the sapling, get on to the branch, and then work his way along it until he reached the top of the hollow trunk. Peter examined the sapling suspiciously, and then said he would try. He spat on his hands, seked the trunk of the sapling, and swarmed aloft, using his almost prehensile toes to get extra grip upon the bark. When he reached the half-way mark, however, some seventy feet from the ground, his weight started to bend the sapling over like a bow, and before he had gone much further the trunk was giving ominous creakings. It was obvious that the tree was too slender to support the weight of my corpulent tree-climber, and he was forced to return to earth. Jacob, grinning with excitement, came strutting across to where I stood.
'Masa, I fit climb dat stick,' he said. 'I no be fat man like Peter.'
'Fat!' said Peter indignantly; 'who you de call fat, eh? I no be fat; dat stick no get power for hold man, dat's all.'
'You be fat,' said Jacob scornfully; 'all time you fill your belly with food, an now Masa want you to climb stick you no fit.'
'All right, all right,' I said hastily, 'you go try and climb, Jacob. But take care you no go fall, eh?'
'Yes, sah,' he said, and running to the sapling he flung himself on to the trunk and swarmed up it like a caterpillar.
Now Jacob weighed about half of what Peter weighed, so he was soon clinging to the very tip of the sapling, and the tree was still upright, though it swayed round and round in a gentle curve. Each time it passed the branch of the big tree, Jacob made a wild grab, but each time he missed. Presently he looked down.
'Masa, I no fit catch um,' he called,
'All right, come down,' I shouted back.
He descended rapidly to the ground, and I gave him the end of a long length of strong cord.
'You go tie dis for top, eh? Den, when you ready, we go pull dis small stick so it come fordis big one. Understand?'
'Yes, sah,' said Jacob gleefully, and scuttled up the sapling again.
When he reached the top, he fastened the rope round the sapling and shouted down that he was ready. We laid hold of the rope and pulled lustily; as we backed slowly across the clearing, digging our toes into the soft leaf-mould to gain a grip, the sapling bent slowly over until its tip touched the great branch. Quickly as a squirrel, Jacob had reached out, got a grip on the branch, and hauled himself across. We still held on to the sapling until he had pulled a piece of rope from out of his loin-cloth and tied the top of it to the branch on which he was now lying. When the sapling was tied, we released our hold on the rope gently. Jacob was now standing upright on the branch, holding on to the smaller growth that sprouted from it, and he slowly groped his way along towards the main trunk, walking warily, for the branch he was using as a road was thickly overgrown with orchids, creepers, and tree-ferns, an ideal habitat for a tree-snake. When he reached the place where the branch joined the tree, he squatted astride it, and lowered a long piece of string to us ; to the end of this we tied a bundle of nets and some small boxes in which to put any specimens he caught at the top. With these safely tied to his waist he moved round the tree to the hole, which was situated in the crutch where the great branches spread away from the trunk. Squatting down, he spread the net over the hole, arranged the boxes within easy reach, and then grinned down at us mischievously.
'All right, Masa, your hunter man 'e ready now,' he shouted.
'Hunterman!' muttered Peter indignantly; 'dis cook call himself hunter man… eh… aehh!'
We collected a mass of dry twigs and green leaves, and laid the fire in the huge chimney-like opening of the tree. We lit it and piled the green leaves on, after draping a net over the arched opening. The fire smouldered sullenly for a few minutes, and then the frail wisp of smoke grew stronger, and soon a great stream of grey smoke was pouring up the hollow shell of the tree. As the smoke rose up the trunk I became aware that there were other holes which we had not spotted, for at various points in the bark, some thirty feet above the ground, frail wisps of smoke started to appear, coiling out and fading into the air.