Eventually, having extracted a promise from the father that he would try to get specimens for us, we shook hands all round once again, and the youth paddled us back across the lake. He smiled at us as we stood on the bank, swivelled the canoe round and paddled off across the silent lake, leaving a streamer of black ripples on the smooth water.
Our walk back to Adventure was most exhausting, for we wanted to get back before dark, and to do this we had to hurry. The second sand reef seemed to have increased in size since we crossed it, and the sand appeared to have become twice as soft and clutching to our tired legs. At last we reached the woods on the further side, and looking back we saw the whole reef lying gleaming in the setting sun, like a frosted mirror As we turned to enter the wood Cordai stopped us with an upraised hand and pointed at the trees some thirty feet away I looked and saw a sight I shall never forget, a startlingly beautiful sight that held me spellbound The wood was not at all tropical in appearance, in fact it looked more like a strip of English woodland The trees were not very tall, with slender silvery trunks and glossy green leaves. Thick, short undergrowth grew between the trunks, and this, together with the leaves on the trees, was turned golden in the rays of the setting sun In the upper branches of the trees was a group of five red howler monkeys, brilliantly lit against this background of greenery They were large and heavy creatures with strongly prehensile tails and sad chocolate-coloured faces They were clad in long, thick, silky fur of a colour that defies description It was the richest and most brilliant mixture of copper and wine red, shining with a metallic lustre that is rarely seen except in precious stones and some species of birds To see such vivid coloration in a group of monkeys struck me speechless.
The troop was composed of a gigantic male and four smaller individuals that I presumed were his wives. The old male was the most vivid of the lot, and he sat in the topmost branches of a tree, in the direct rays of the sun, so that his coat shone as though it was on fire. He sat there with a melancholy expression on his face, plucking the young leaves and stuffing them into his mouth Having eaten enough, he swung himself to the next tree by means of his tail and arms and disappeared among the leaves, followed by his troop of glittering females As we made our way through the shadowy woods and along the banks of the canals where the little frogs called, I made a mental vow that I was going to get one of those glossy, fantastic monkeys, even if I had to pay a king's ransom for it.
CHAPTER THREE
The Monstrous Animal and Sloth Songs
There is to be found in South America an extremely interesting family of animals known as opossums. They are interesting principally because they are the only marsupials, or pouched animals, known outside the Australian regions. Like the kangaroo, and other members of the Australian fauna, the opossums carry their newly-born young in a pouch of skin on the belly, though this form of transport seems to be falling into disuse among the South American marsupials, for in most species the pouch is not large and is only used to hold the young –when they are very tiny and helpless, and in others it has almost disappeared, being represented only by longitudinal folds of skin covering the teats. With these latter species a new form of transport has arisen: the babies are carried on the mother's back, their tails lovingly entwined with hers. In general appearance the opossums resemble rats, though they vary in size, some being the size of a mouse and others as large as a cat. They have long, rat-like noses, and, in some species, long, naked, rat-like tails; but the difference between a rat's tail and an opossum's becomes obvious when you see an opossum climbing a tree: the tail seems to take on a life of its own, twining and coiling among the branches and holding with such strength that the animal can hang by it if necessary.
There are several species of opossum found in Guiana , and they are known collectively as uwaries. The commonest sort is the Didelphys opossum, which is disliked by everyone in Guiana. It has adapted itself to a changing environment with the skill of a brown rat, and it is as much at home among the back-yards of Georgetown as it had been in the deep forest. It has learnt also to be a complete scavenger, and no dustbin is free from its investigations; it will even enter a house in search of food. Its large size and fierce character have made its regular attacks on chicken runs something to be reckoned with, and it is this habit more than any other that has earned it the hatred of the local population. In Georgetown I had been told many stories of its depraved tastes and its disgusting attacks on innocent chickens, but the result was that I began to feel a sneaking regard for this animal that, though harried and hunted and killed wherever found, still managed to earn a bandit's living in the city.
On arrival in Adventure I had questioned the local hunters on the subject of Didelphys opossums, and when I told them I was willing to buy specimens of this despised animal they looked at me as though I was mad. An English farmer would wear much the same expression if some foreigner evinced great interest in (and willingness to buy) specimens of the common rat. However, business is business, and if I was mad enough to pay good money for uwaries (uwaries, mark you! ), then the hunters were not going to destroy what appeared to be a heaven-sent market for creatures that had, hitherto, appeared to be completely useless vermin.
The first Didelphys opossums turned up early one morning.
Bob and Ivan had gone for a walk along the canals to see what fish and frogs they could catch, and I had stayed behind to clean and feed our now considerable collection of animals. A hunter arrived with three of the opossums in a sack and explained at great length and with vivid pantomime how he had captured them at considerable risk to himself in his chicken run the previous night. On looking into the sack all I could see was a lot of brownish-yellow fur, and from the inside arose a chorus of whining screams and cat-like spittings. I decided that it would be prudent not to remove the creatures for examination until I had a cage ready to put them into, so I told the hunter to come back in the evening for his payment. Then I set to work and converted a wooden box into a suitable crate for the beasts. Meanwhile an ominous silence reigned in the sack, broken only by an occasional cracking sound. I had just put the finishing touches to the cage, and was donning a large pair of leather gauntlets before moving the opossums into it, when Bob and Ivan returned from their walk.
"Ha!" I said proudly.
"Come and see what I've got."
"I hope it isn't another anaconda," said Bob.
"No, it isn't. It's three uwaries."
"Uwaries, sir?" asked Ivan, looking at the sack.
"Are they all in there?"
"Yes. Shouldn't they be in a sack, or something?"
"Well, sir, I'm afraid they may fight. They are very bad tempered animals," said Ivan lugubriously.
"Oh, they haven't been fighting," I said gaily, "they've been as quiet as anything."
But Ivan still looked sceptical, so I made haste to open the sack. Now I don't know the exact length of time those animals had been in that sack, but it had been quite long enough. I found that the two large ones had whiled away their captivity by decapitating the smallest, and they were busy having a gory cannibalistic orgy. It took us a long time to get the two survivors into the cage, for they seemed to resent being interrupted in the middle of such a fine meal. They attacked us viciously, screaming and hissing with open mouths and making things more difficult by winding their prehensile tails round everything they could with a grip like ivy. At last we got these bloodstained horrors into the cage, and I gave them the corpse of their companion to finish off, which they did during the night to the accompaniment of much hissing and snarling. The next morning I found them sparring round each other with murderous expressions on their faces, so, to prevent my opossum collection from being reduced to one, I had to divide the cage with a stout plank of wood. Having heard so many stories in Guiana of the way in which opossums will eat anything and everything, I decided to experiment and see how true this was, for, according to massive natural history tomes I had consulted, they lived on a delicate fairy-like diet of fruit and insects, with an occasional egg or baby bird thrown in. For three days, therefore, I filled the opossum's cages with a revolting assortment of food ranging from cold curry to decomposed corpses, and they ate every bit. Apparently the more disgusting the substance the better they liked it. After three days' intimate association with these creatures I began to think that probably all the stories I had heard were true. I had to discontinue my feeding experiments as both the uwaries were developing a strong and pungent smell, and Bob complained that he did not see why he should get diphtheria in the cause of zoological research.