The Bafut Beagles

The first day that I went out with the Bafut Beagles the hunters turned up so heavily armed one would have thought that we were going out to hunt a lion. Apart from the usual machetes, they were carrying spears and flintlocks. As I did not fancy receiving a backside full of rusty nails and gravel, I insisted, amid much lamentation, that the guns be left behind. The hunters were horrified at my decision.

Masa, said one of them plaintively, if we go meet bad beef how we go kill um if we go lef our gun for dis place?

If we go meet bad beef we go catch um, no kill um, I said firmly.

eh! Masa go catch bad beef?

na so, my friend. If you fear, you no go come, you hear?

Masa, I no de fear, he said indignantly; but if we go meet bad beef and it go kill Masa, de Fon get angry too much.

hush your mouth, my friend, I said, producing the shotgun. I go take my own gun. Den if beef go kill me it no be your palaver, you hear?

I hear, sah, said the hunter.

It was very early morning, and the sun had not yet risen above the encircling mountain ranges. The sky was a very delicate shade of rose pink, trimmed here and there with a lacing of white cloud. The valleys and hills were still blurred and obscured with mist, and the long golden grass at the roadside was bent and heavy with dew. The hunters walked ahead in single file, the pack of dogs scampering in and out of the undergrowth, their bells making a pleasant clonking as they ran. Presently we turned off the road and followed a narrow twisting pathway that led over the hills. Here the mist was thicker, but low-lying. You could not see the lower half of your body, and you got the eerie impression that you were wading waist deep in a smooth and gently undulating lake of foam. The long grass, moist with dew, squeaked across my shoes, and all around me, under the surface of this opaque mist lake, tiny frogs were sharing an amphibian joke with each other in a series of explosive chuckles. Soon the sun rose like a frosted orange above the distant fringe of hills, and as its heat grew stronger the mist started to rise from the ground and coil up to the sky, until it seemed as though we were walking through a forest of pale white trees that twisted and bent, broke and reformed with amoebic skill as they stretched and spiralled their way upwards. It took us about two hours to reach our destination, the place that the hunters had chosen for our first hunt. It was a deep, wide valley lying between two ridges of hills, curving slightly, like a bow. Along the bottom of this valley a tiny stream made its way between black rocks and golden grass, glinting in the sun like a fine skein of spun glass. The undergrowth in the valley was thick and tangled, shaded here and there by small clumps of shrubs and bushes.

We made our way down into the valley, and there spread about a hundred yards of nets right across it. Then the hunters took the dogs and went to the head of the valley, while I waited near the nets. For half an hour there was silence as they moved slowly towards the net, a silence broken only by the faint sounds of the dogs bells and an occasional shrill expletive from the hunters when one of them trod on a thorn. I was just beginning to think that we had drawn a blank when the hunters started a great uproar and the dogs began barking furiously. They were still some distance away from the net, and hidden from my view by a small clump of trees.

na whatee? I shouted above the noise.

na beef for dis place, Masa, came the answer.

I waited patiently, and presently a panting hunter burst through the trees.

Masa, you go give me dis small catch-net, he said, pointing at the smaller nets neatly piled beside the bags.

na what kind of beef you done find? I asked him.

na squirrel, sah. e done run for up stick.

I picked up a thick canvas bag, and followed him through the undergrowth until we reached the clump of trees. Here the hunters were grouped, all chattering and arguing as to the best way of catching the quarry, while the dogs leapt and barked round the trunk of a small tree.

Which side dis beef? I asked.

We go catch um one time, Masa.

na fine beef dis, Masa.

we go catch um one time, Masa.