08 Safari Adventure (12 page)

‘Okay’ Is it ready to travel?’

‘It got a nasty cut on the neck from the wire snare but we’ve treated it and I’m sure it will heal.’

‘How will it like being cooped up in the plane?’

‘I don’t know. It depends on whether it trusts you or not. You both seem to have a way with animals, so I think you’ll get along all right.’

The colobus cocked its picture-frame face to one side and studied the boys with its soft brown eyes. It raised one hand and stroked its white beard.

‘No thumb,’ exclaimed Roger. ‘I thought all monkeys had thumbs.’

‘Practically all do. The colobus is an exception. It’s a very intelligent animal, but it can’t do what many other monkeys can do since it has no thumb. Do you realize how important the thumb is? Try picking things up without using it. You would have a lot of trouble using any sort of tool if you had no thumb. Man is very lucky because Nature gave him one. Much of our civilization is built round the thumb. Now come over here and meet your other passenger.’

He led the way to a cage occupied by an animal about the size of a mule. But it didn’t look like a mule, nor like

any animal the boys had ever seen.

‘You’re looking,’ said the warden, ‘at the rarest of all African animals. The okapi.’

‘I’ve always wanted to see one,’ Hal said. ‘The okapi is listed at ten thousand dollars. Now I can see why it’s worth so much.’

Every inch of the animal was different from every other inch. It was dabbed with colours as if an artist had brushed it with every paint he owned. It was yellow, red, chestnut, black, white, blue-black, maroon, sepia, cream, orange, and purple. All the colours blended perfectly in the wonderfully soft, glossy coat.

It seemed to be a combination of zebra, giraffe, and antelope. It had the head and short horns of a giraffe, the stripes of a zebra on its hindquarters, the large broad ears of a wild dog, and it seemed to wear white stockings.

Suddenly it looked like an ant-eater when it put out its tongue a foot long and licked itself behind the ears!

‘It’s a stranger here,’ Crosby said. ‘Like the colobus. It will certainly get killed if it stays here. It belongs in the deepest, darkest jungle in the northern Congo, or close to it. No white man knew it existed until sixty years ago. The pygmies knew about it and told white hunters about it but no one believed them. I wonder how many other animals there are hidden away in the jungle that we know nothing about. The okapi is very shy. He never came out and showed himself. He hid for thirty million years.’

Roger wrinkled his forehead. ‘Did you say thirty million?’ ‘Naturalists know now that the species is that old. The okapi has been called a living fossil. Most animals change, grow larger, or smaller, or become extinct. The okapi has stayed the same all that time. But now the poachers are after him and the chances are that very soon this thirty-million-year-old beauty will disappear.’

‘Where can we take him where he’ll be safe?’

‘Nowhere,’ said Crosby gloomily. ‘Nowhere will be safe. But there is a place that the poachers haven’t found yet and perhaps won’t for a while. It’s a big island in Lake Victoria. It’s called Rubondo. It has fifty-five thousand acres of dense forest - just the kind the okapi loves. It has been set aside as a game sanctuary and it is protected by waters that can get very wild and stormy and poachers who try to get there are apt to be drowned. You could be drowned too. There’s no airfield on the island. You would have to bring your plane down on the mainland and then charter a boat or raft to take you and the okapi over to the island. Perhaps you’d rather not try it.’

‘It doesn’t sound too bad,’ said Hal. ‘I suppose it would only take an hour or so to ferry across to the ‘island.’

Crosby smiled. ‘More than that. Victoria is the second largest lake in the world. Your voyage-to the island would take fifteen hours. And if you didn’t have about five storms on the way I’d be much surprised. I can’t ask you to take the risk - it’s up to you.’

‘We’ll go,’ Hal said. ‘If you’ll show us how to get there’

Back in the office, Crosby spread out the map of East

Africa.

‘The Aberdares are here, north of Nairobi. You land at Nyeri then trek in to Treetops. You’ve heard of Treetops?’

‘Of course. The hotel perched in the top branches of a giant Cape chestnut.’

‘Most of the forest trees there are giants. The colobus will love them. Stay overnight up in the treehouse. The next morning, fly three hundred miles south-west to Mwanza on Lake Victoria. Here it is. And there’s Rubondo Island, a hundred miles across the lake.’

‘When do we leave?’

‘If you want to leave now, you can make Treetops before dark.’

‘Let’s go,’ said Roger.

The animal passengers were not quite so enthusiastic. The two rear seats of the plane were removed to make room for them. The okapi in a close-fitting bamboo cage was driven to the landing field and five men hoisted the animal aboard.

‘Won’t he be too heavy for the plane?’ Roger wondered.

‘No,’ said the warden. ‘You have a 250-horsepower engine there. It will lift two and a half tons. That okapi can’t weigh more than a quarter of a ton.’

The zebra-giraffe-antelope had never been in a spot like this in all his thirty million years. He whinnied like a worried horse and banged his head about against the bamboo slats, which bent when they were struck, so they did him no harm.

Crosby stripped a leafy branch from a tree and laid it on top of the cage so that the leaves hung down between the slats. The okapi at once coiled a twelve-inch ribbon of tongue round the leaves and drew them down within reach of the grinding teeth. So long as he had his favourite food, he could tolerate his strange environment.

The mild-mannered colobus did not need to be caged. Roger climbed into the plane with the monkey in his arms. With the curiosity natural to an intelligent animal, it examined the instrument board closely, then climbed back over Roger’s shoulder to the top of the okapi’s cage from which point it made a close examination of every inch of the cabin. When the engine began to roar it plopped back into Roger’s lap and peered about anxiously as the plane thundered up over the treetops.

Hal followed the red road north-west to Nairobi, then turned north towards the dazzling snows of 17,000-foot Mount Kenya. Helped by a tail wind, he made the three-hundred-mile flight in two hours, then came down on a small but open landing field at the edge of the Aberdare forest.

Here was the Outspan Hotel where arrangements must be made to enter the game reserve and spend the night at Treetops.

They had scarcely touched the ground when they were greeted by the hotel’s white hunter who introduced himself with ‘Call me Geoffrey’.

The okapi was left in the plane with plenty of leaves for supper and breakfast.

‘He’ll be all right there,’ said Geoffrey. ‘Well look after him. Now, if you’ll climb into this jeep, we’ll be off.’

With Roger holding the colobus, the car slithered over a muddy forest trail for three miles, then came to a stop at the end of the road. Great trees towered all about.

‘Now we have a quarter-mile walk to Treetops,’ said Geoffrey.

They followed a narrow track among the forest giants. The colobus was getting more and more excited. These tall trees offered it an ideal home. The air cooled by the snows of Mount Kenya was bound to please an animal with a coat of fur so warm and thick.

‘What’s that ladder for?’ asked Roger, noticing a ladder nailed to a tree. Farther down the trail was another - and then another.

‘I’m afraid you’re going to find out right now,’ said Geoffrey. ‘Quick - climb that ladder.’

‘Why?’

‘No time for questions and answers. Get up there fast.’

Roger climbed, the colobus clinging to his shoulder. Close behind came Hal and Geoffrey. There was, a crashing sound in the forest, then five loudly trumpeting elephants came charging out of the gloom.

‘Higher,’ shouted Geoffrey.

They climbed until Roger reached the end of the ladder. The upstretched trunks of the elephants did not quite touch Geoffrey’s feet.

‘Now you know what the ladders are for,’ said Geoffrey. ‘I should have explained - it’s a rule of this trail. Climb eight feet high in case of rhino or buffalo, eighteen feet if it’s an elephant’

‘Are they really so savage?’

‘The rhinos and buffaloes can be. You never know about the elephant. He may be just trying to tease you -or he may mean business. If some poacher has pinged him with an arrow, he will revenge himself on any human he happens to see.’

‘What do we do now?’

‘Just wait.’

‘How long?’

‘It may be five minutes, it may be five hours. You can’t hurry an elephant. They’ll go when they’re ready.’ it was not the most comfortable place to wait, thought Roger - clinging to a ladder with a heavy monkey glued to your shoulder.

The elephants were in no hurry. They put in their time tearing up bushes and swallowing them, leaves, twigs, roots, and all. They glanced up now and then to make sure their quarry was still there.

The colobus was getting restless. It threw back its head and stared upwards. Gradually Roger realized that there was something alive above him. He looked up and could see nothing at first but a little movement of the leaves at the top of the tree.

Then he saw a face peering down. It was a black face with a white ring all about it. It must belong to a colobus monkey. Other faces like it appeared. The animals chattered down an invitation for Roger’s colobus to come and join them. ‘Shall I let it go?’ Roger asked Geoffrey. ‘This is as good a place as any,’ said Geoffrey. ‘The colobus monkeys are a very friendly sort. They’ll give your friend the red-carpet treatment I’m sure.’

Roger was already fond of this gentle creature, but knew it would be better off with its own kind.

Hanging on with one hand, he used the other to shift the animal over on to a branch beside his head. The colobus sat on the branch and looked long and thoughtfully at Roger. Then it climbed up branch by branch to the welcoming party above. There was a new burst of happy talk when it arrived and there was no doubt that the stranger had at once been adopted as a full member of the Aberdare colony.

‘Don’t look so blue,’ said Geoffrey. ‘You’ll probably see it again. The monkeys come down to drink every night at the Treetops lake.’

The elephants had wandered off. The march to Treetops was resumed. Now they could see it through the trees, and it was a strange sight. A hotel floating in the air! It was perched fifty feet above the ground in the top branches of a big tree and it moved slightly backwards and forwards as the tree swayed in the wind. A wooden stairway something like a spider’s web hung from the door down to the ground.

It was like a six-storey building with the lower five storeys removed. It was as if wreckers had destroyed all of a building for fifty feet up but had forgotten to take the top floor. There it seemed to float in the sky, defying the laws of gravity.

Directly in front of the hotel was a small lake completely surrounded by forest. The boys had heard much about this famous place. They knew that at night all sorts of animals came out of the forest to drink at the lake and root around in the mud for salt. You could look down on them from the balcony of the hotel and if you made no sound they would not be aware of your presence.

Many notable people had slept in this little hotel in the sky.

‘Queen Elizabeth has been here, I believe,’ Hal said.

‘Yes - but she was Princess Elizabeth when she came. During the night she got word that her father the king had died and she was queen.’

‘And Prince Philip?’

‘He has visited us several times. Of course he is the strongest man we have in the whole movement for the protection of African wild life. Come along - we’ll go upstairs.’

They approached the cobweb. The boys were surprised to find that the lowest twelve feet of it were missing - or, at least, these steps had been drawn up out of reach.

Geoffrey pressed a button and the steps came down. After they had climbed them, he pressed another button and up they went like the companion-way of a ship when it is about to sail.

‘What’s the idea?’ Hal inquired.

Tf they’re not up out of the way the big animals will smash them or the small animals will climb them. So we hoist that section out of reach.’

‘Like the drawbridge of a castle,’ Hal said.

They climbed the rest of the steps to this castle in the clouds and entered the hotel door.

Geoffrey introduced them to the manager and they were assigned a room.

In comparison with most hotels, this one was tiny, accommodating only twelve guests - yet as a treehouse it was surprisingly large. It swayed when the tree swayed.

If any guest stepped heavily the whole structure trembled.

Outside the boys’ room was a balcony from which they could look straight down to the beach of the little lake. There was a stairway to the roof where one had an unobstructed view in all directions.

It was a house of whispers. Signs warned that any sound would disturb the game. The white hunter whispered, the guests whispered, the servants whispered. Everyone wore rubber-soled shoes. It was the rule. Tackies (tennis shoes) could be bought if you did not have a pair.

‘But there’s one thing I don’t understand,’ Hal said to Geoffrey. ‘Even though the animals can’t hear us, surely they can smell us. We’re only fifty feet away.’

If we were down on their level they would certainly get our scent - perhaps even if we were a quarter of a mile away. But here, fifty feet above them, the air currents carry our scent high above their heads. They don’t know we exist - unless we make a noise. This is no place for a person with a cold. One cough, and all the animals scamper into the forest. But they come back. They love this place. The soil in that beach happens to be full of salt. All animals need salt - except the meat eaters. They get it from the meat they eat.’

An excellent dinner was served at the long table in the dining-room. Then every one of the twelve guests slipped out silently on to the balcony and sat to look down on the pageant below. All wore heavy clothing, and some had wrapped themselves in blankets stripped from their beds, for the mountain air at an altitude of seven thousand feet was cold in spite of the fact that Treetops was almost on the equator.