Elephants, Though Plentiful On
The Adjacent Mainland, Are Quite Absent From Fernando Po, As Are
Also Hippos And The Great
Anthropoid apes; but of the little
gazelles, small monkeys, porcupines, and squirrels he has a large
supply, and in the
Rivers a very pretty otter (Lutra poensis) with
yellow brown fur often quite golden underneath; a creature which is,
I believe, identical with the Angola otter.
The Bubis use in their hunting flint-lock guns, but chiefly traps
and nets, and, I am told, slings. The advantage of these latter
methods are, I expect, the same as on the mainland, where a
distinguished sportsman once told me: "You go shoot thing with gun.
Berrah well - but you no get him thing for sure. No, sah. Dem gun
make nize. Berrah well. You fren hear dem nize and come look him,
and you hab to go share what you done kill. Or bad man hear him
nize, and he come look him, and you no fit to get share - you fit to
get kill yusself. Chii! chii! traps be best." I urged that the
traps might also be robbed. "No, sah," says he, "them bian (charm)
he look after them traps, he fit to make man who go tief swell up
and bust."
The Bubis also fish, mostly by basket traps, but they are not
experts either in this or in canoe management. Their chief sea-
shore sport is hunting for the eggs of the turtles who lay in the
sand from August to October. These eggs - about 200 in each nest -
are about the size of a billiard-ball, with a leathery envelope, and
are much valued for food, as are also the grubs of certain beetles
got from the stems of the palm-trees, and the honey of the wild bees
which abound here.
Their domestic animals are the usual African list; cats, dogs,
sheep, goats, and poultry. Pigs there are too, very domestic in
Clarence and in a wild state in the forest. These pigs are the
descendants of those imported by the Spaniards, and not long ago
became such an awful nuisance in Clarence that the Government issued
instructions that all pigs without rings in their noses - i.e. all in
a condition to grub up back gardens - should be forthwith shot if
found abroad. This proclamation was issued by the governmental
bellman thus: - "I say - I say - I say - I say. Suppose pig walk - iron
no live for him nose! Gun shoot. Kill him one time. Hear re! hear
re!"
However a good many pigs with no iron living in their noses got
adrift and escaped into the interior, and have flourished like the
green bay-tree, destroying the Bubi's plantation and eating his
yams, while the Bubi retaliating kills and eats them. So it's a
drawn battle, for the Bubi enjoys the pig and the pig enjoys the
yams, which are of singular excellence in this island and celebrated
throughout the Bight. Now, I am told, the Government are firmly
discouraging the export of these yams, which used to be quite a
little branch of Fernando Po trade, in the hope that this will
induce the native to turn his attention to working in the coffee and
cacao plantations.
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