“Masa, we done catch big beef to-day,” roared Elias, slapping his plump thighs in an excess of mirth.
I picked the chameleon up and placed him in the palm of my hand. He was, as I say, no more than three inches long, and had a tiny stumpy little tail about an inch and a half long, which was curled up neatly like a watch-spring. On the end of his upturned nose was a small horn, which gave him a very disdainful, camel-like expression. He was a light fawn, covered with faint specks and streaks of rust red. He was my first Pygmy chameleon, and I was fascinated by his size, by his unhurried movements, and by his disdainful expression. Why he, an essentially arboreal reptile, should be found in the tunnels of a termites’ nest I could not think, but there he was. Later, when I got to know him better, I discovered other curious things about him. I never saw him eat, for example, yet he must have done so, for he stayed with me a long time and remained plump and in the best of health. I could not get him to change colour at all, either by annoying him, or by putting him on different coloured surroundings. The only time he changed was at night, when he would close his eyes and turn a delicate ash grey all over, thus looking more like a small dead leaf than ever. I eventually obtained four of these amusing little creatures, but I was never lucky enough to see one in its wild state, except the one in the termites’ nest, which I don’t think counts! Each time, when they were brought to me, I would ask the bringer where it had been caught, and each time they would say that they had captured it on the ground, generally walking solemnly along a native path. With the other chameleons they always insisted that they caught them in the trees, but the Pygmies they found on the ground. Careful questioning failed to shake them on this point. Wondering if perhaps these little reptiles were quite so exclusively arboreal as I had supposed, I made an experiment with the four I had. I placed them in a cage which had, in addition to numerous branches, a layer of earth at the bottom covered with dead leaves and bits of twigs. Hitherto they had been forced to remain in the branches because of the bareness of the cage bottom. As soon as some natural cover was available down below, they left the branches and lived entirely on the ground, hiding happily among the leaves.
The only habit they had which was exactly like their larger cousins was the dance. This is a most curious action which chameleons indulge in occasionally, and which really has to be seen to be appreciated to, the full. Place them on the ground, or on a branch, and they will stand stock still for a minute or so, only their eyes moving. Then, very slowly, they will put forward one front leg and the opposite hind leg. With these two members in mid-air they will sway rhythmically backwards and forwards for a few seconds. Then they will take the step and stand stock still again before repeating the performance with the other pair of legs. All the time their great eyes would be rolling round and round, looking up and down, back and front.
Neither the Africans nor my collection of monkeys appreciated the chameleons. The Africans would have nothing to do with them, alive or dead, and the sight of my handling and being bitten by these reptiles would set them all off moaning and clicking their fingers in agitation. They considered that every chameleon was deadly poisonous, and no argument would convince them otherwise. The monkeys made it quite obvious that they disliked and feared these reptiles, but not in the same way as they feared a snake. The chameleons fascinated them and revolted them at the same time. The monkeys were tethered to stakes next door to the shelter that housed the chameleons, and they never tired of watching the reptiles moving slowly about their branches. Whenever a chameleon would shoot out his tongue for a fly, all the monkeys would start back as though bitten, and utter sharp cries of wonder and interest.
At this time my monkey collection consisted of a Red-eared Guenon, four Putty-nose Guenons, and
six Drills, and one day I tried an experiment. One of the chameleons had died, and so I took the corpse to the monkeys, and sitting down among them I showed it to them. They formed a respectful circle round me and examined the chameleon with interest. After screwing up his courage the eldest Drill touched it quickly, then drew back his hand and wiped it hastily on the ground. I could not persuade the Guenons to come anywhere near it. The Drills eventually became very brave and started to play with the corpse, even chasing the screaming Guenons with it and threatening them. I had to put a stop to this as the Drills were quite bad-mannered enough, and the Guenons were protesting bitterly, and seemed genuinely terrified. Then I tried something else: I got a large live chameleon and let it walk amongst the monkeys. Although they kept out of its way and chattered and made faces at it, they did not seem more than slightly afraid. I then got a fair-sized water-snake and released that. There was no mistaking the fear this time: they all fled to the top of their stakes and clung there screaming blue murder until I had removed the snake.
The Drills were the street urchins of the monkey collection. Everything, or almost everything, that you gave to them was first put through the test of whether it was edible or not. If it was not, then it was played with for a while, but they soon lost interest. If a thing was edible (and few things did not come into this category) they would treat it in two different ways. If it was a delicacy, such as a grasshopper, they would cram it into their mouths with all speed in order to prevent anyone else having it. If it was something that was not very attractive they would play with it for a long time, occasionally taking bites out of it, until there was nothing left for them to play with. The Drills, though ugly in comparison to some monkeys, had a brand of charm all their own. Their rolling, dog-like walk; the way they would wrinkle up their noses at you, showing all their baby teeth in a hideous grimace which was supposed to be ingratiating; the way they would walk backwards towards you, displaying their bright pink bottoms as a sign of affection. All these things endeared the Drills to me, but the thing that never failed to melt my heart was the trustful way they would rush to your legs as soon as you appeared, and cling there with hands and feet, uttering hiccuping cries of delight, and peering up into your face with such trustful expressions.
The six Drills I had acquired ruled the roast over all the other and more timid monkeys for a long time. The slender and nervous Guenons could always be persuaded to drop a succulent grasshopper if a Drill charged them, uttering guttural coughs of anger. But one day a new arrival proved their reign at an end: a man walked into the camp, preceded on a length of rope by a three-parts-grown Baboon. Young though he was, he was at least three times as big as the largest Drill, and so, from the moment I purchased him, he assumed control of the monkeys. Apart from his great size he had a shaggy coat of yellowish fur, huge teeth, and a long sweeping, lion-like tail. It was this latter that seemed to give the Drills an inferiority complex: they would examine it for a long time with intense interest, and then turn round and gaze at their own blunt posteriors, ornamented only with a short curled stump of a tail. I called this baboon George, for he resembled a character in the village with this name, and he turned out to be gentle and kind to the other monkeys, without allowing them to take any liberties. Sometimes he would go so far as to allow the Guenons to search for salt on his skin, while he lay prostrate on the ground, a trance-like expression on his face. When he first arrived the Drills banded together and tried to give him a beating up, to prove their superiority, but George was equal to the occasion and gave far more than he got. After this the Drills were very respectful indeed, and would even give a quick look round to see where George was before bullying a Guenon, for George’s idea of settling a quarrel was to rush in and bite both contestants as hard as he could.