The Whispering Land

prolonged and exhausting business of hoisting the animals on board, and arranging the cages in their places on the hatch. This is always a nerve-racking time, for as the great nets, piled high with cages, soar into the air, you are always convinced that a rope is going to break and deposit your precious animals either into the sea or else in a mangled heap on the dockside. But, by the evening, the last cage was safely aboard, and the last piece of equipment stowed away in the hold, and we could relax.

All our friends were there to see us off, and, if in one or two people's eyes was a semi-repressed expression of relief, who was to blame them, for I had made martyrs of them all in one way or another. However, we were all exhausted but relaxed, ploughing our way through a series of bottles I had had the foresight to order in my cabin. Everything was on board, everything was safe, and now all we had to do was to have a farewell drink, for in an hour the ship was sailing. Just as I was replenishing everyone's glass for the fifth toast, a little man in Customs uniform appeared in the cabin doorway, rustling a sheaf of papers. I gazed at him fondly, without any premonition of danger.

'Señor Durrell?' he asked politely.

'Señor Garcia?' I inquired.

'Si,' he said, flushing with pleasure that I should know his name, 'I am Señor Garcia of the Aduana…'

It was Marie who scented danger.

'Is anything wrong?' she asked.

'Si, si, señorita, the señor's papers are all in order, but they have not been signed by a despachante.'*

'What on earth's a despachante?' I asked.

'It is sort of man,' said Marie worriedly, and turned back to the little Customs man, 'But is this essential, senior?'

'Si, señorita' he said gravely, 'without the despachante's signature we cannot let the animals be taken. They will have to be unloaded.'

I felt as though someone had removed my entire stomach in one piece, for we had about three-quarters of an hour.

'But is there no despachante here who will sign it?' asked Marie.

'Señorita, it is late, they have all gone home,' said Señor Garcia.

This is, of course, the sort of situation, which takes about twenty years off your life. I could imagine the shipping company's reaction if we now went to them and told them that, instead of gaily casting off for England in an hour's time, they would be delayed five hours or so while they unloaded all my animals from the hatch, and, what was worse, all my equipment and the Land-Rover which were deep in the bowels of the ship. But by now my friends, unfortunate creatures, were used to crises like this, and they immediately burst into activity. Mercedes, Josefina, Rafael and David went to argue with the Chief of Customs on duty, while Willie Anderson, another friend of ours, went off with Marie to the private home of a despachante he knew. This was on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, so they would have to drive like the devil to get back in time. The happy farewell party burst like a bomb and our friends all fled in different directions. Sophie and I could only wait and hope, while I mentally rehearsed how I would phrase the news to the Captain, without being seriously maimed, if we had to unload everything.

Presently the party who had been arguing with the Chief of Customs returned despondently.

'No use,' said David, 'he's adamant. No signature, no departure.'

We had twenty minutes to go.* At that moment we heard a car screech to a halt on the docks outside. We piled out on to the deck, and there, coming up the gangway, smiling triumphantly, were Marie and Willie, waving the necessary documents, all beautifully signed by what must be the finest, noblest despachante in the business. So, with ten minutes to go we all had a drink. I even gave Señor Garcia one.

Then the steward poked his head in to say that we would be casting off in a moment, and we trooped on to the deck. We said our goodbyes, and our tribe of friends made their way down on to the quay. Ropes were cast off, and slowly the gap between the ship and the dock widened, so that we could see the shuddering reflection of the quay lights in the dark waters. Presently the ship gained speed, and soon our friends were lost to sight, and all we could see was the great heap of multicoloured lights that was Buenos Aries.

As we turned away from the rail and made our way to our cabins, I remembered Darwin's words, written a century before. When speaking of the travelling naturalist he said: 'He will discover how many truly kind-hearted people there are with whom he had never before had, or ever again will have, any further communication, who yet are ready to offer him most disinterested assistance.'

STOP PRESS*

For those that are interested here is an up-to-date account of the creatures we brought back. Claudius the tapir, whom I could once lift up in my arms – at the risk of a rupture – is now the size of a pony, and eagerly awaiting a bride when we can afford one.

Mathias and Martha, the coatimundis, have settled down to domestic bliss and have produced two sets of children. Martha, at the time of writing, is again in an interesting condition.

Juan and Juanita, the peccaries, also had two sets of babies, and are expecting a third.

Luna, the puma, the ocelot and the Geoffroy's cat are all flourishing, getting fatter with each passing day.

Blanco, the Tucuman Amazon, still says 'Hijo de puta', but very softly now.

All the other birds, beasts and reptiles are equally well, and many showing signs of wanting to breed.

Which leaves me with only one thing to say and thus, I hope, stop people writing to ask me: my zoo is a private one, but it is open to the public every day of the year except Christmas Day.

So come and see us.

NOTES

TO PAGE 5

The title contains a pun, since the chanter deals with the customs of the country in two senses of the word: (1) the way things are done by most people in a given country, its usual practices; (2) the department of the government service that collects import duties, i.e. taxes paid to the government on imported goods (Sp. aduana).

The pronoun she is sometimes used with the names of countries and towns.

jacaranda tree – a South American tree with hard brown wood (called rose-wood from its fragrance and widely used in cabinet- making)

palo borracho (Sp.) - borracho tree, another species of South American trees a suicidal streak – an inclination to suicide

Land-Rover – make of car; a car able to move across the fields or country, not following roads, a cross-country car

TO PAGE 6

feminine pulchritude – female beauty; using long bookish words of Latin and Greek origin, the author makes this phrase sound ironically pompous the Argentine (or the Argentines) – another name for Argentina, now slightly archaic and therefore sounding more dignified

a cross between the Parthenon and the Reichstag – resembling at once the Parthenon, a world-famous, temple of Athena (on the Acropolis at Athens), and the building of the Reichstag (i.e. the former German legislative assembly) in Berlin in the bowels – here within, in the innermost part

The verb weave (Past Ind. wove) is here used figuratively, implying that the movement of the car resembled a shuttle carrying the weft-thread across between threads of warp, in the process of weaving.

TO PAGE 7

to the best of my knowledge – as far as I know warming to my work – here getting more and more angry and excited de hand – Josefina's pronunciation of the hand (she asked the author to thrust his arm out of the window, giving a warning that she was going to turn). Josefina's knowledge of English is far from, perfect; the author occasionally reproduces some peculiarities of her pronunciation and her chaotic order of words. These deviations from the rules of grammar in the speech of non-English characters (Dicky de Sola, Luna, Coco and others) are easy to recognize and need not be specially commented upon.

screeched to a shuddering halt – suddenly stopped or halted with a screech animal! (Sp.) - you beast! (Note that in the Spanish language exclamation and interrogation marks always appear not only at the end, but also at the beginning of a sentence or phrase, in inverted form.)

to meet our Maker (i.e. God) – a euphemistic paraphrase for to die

TO PAGE 8

amidships – in the middle (of the ship), a naval term hero used figuratively blurry – Josefina's pronunciation of bloody (a vulgar equivalent of damned); the words shock the author as being highly unsuitable for female conversation