Read Online Sand rivers by Peter Matthiessen, 1937- Hugo van Lawick - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Peter Matthiessen, 1937- Hugo van Lawick
Tags: Zoology
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he succeeded. Before he came, he had been warned by Alan Rodgers that the Selous animals were wild and hidden, but he had counted on their numbers to give him the opportunities he needed; even the Serengeti, he had heard, could not compare with the Selous in its large mammal populations, if one excepted the wildebeest and the gazelles. But whether this was true or not - and we were no longer confident - things wouldn't be easy. Not that Hugo complained; he was too professional for that. But he missed the conditions of the Serengeti, and I could not blame him. The animals further away from Kingupira might be less nervous, and those in the remote south the most trusting of all, but Hugo could not count on this, and as the days passed I could see that he was worried.
At Nakilala, where we arrived just before nightfall, Mwakupalu made quick tea while Brian paced around, disgusted; he was now convinced that someone had been out "hammering animals" for food, and perhaps for money. This region had recently been burned, and there was no regrowth to attract animals; instead, the black floor of the woods,
SAND RIVERS
with its cinder dust and gloom, seemed to emphasize the silence and the emptiness. It was plain to see that there was no systematic burning any more, Brian said, far less the foot patrols that were absolutely necessary if new game scouts were to learn their area. Effective patrols could not be made in vehicles, and anyway, all but the main tracks had been allowed to grow over and deteriorate to such a degree that the majority were now impassable. Without patrols, the bloody poachers could come in here as they pleased, the whole place would be shot to pieces, and meanwhile the bureaucrats, the townspeople who had been assigned by the socialist government to training in wildlife management^ whether they cared about wildlife or not, had taken over the Game Department from the good people Brian himself had trained. His people were less educated, no doubt, but at least they were interested and committed, with a sense of pride and accomplishment in their work, and in some cases - he pointed at old Saidi - with a whole family tradition behind them. "These lazy people they have now do nothing but sit around down here trying to figure out how they can get themselves sent somewhere else. We were proud of this place, and these people despise it! For them, it is banishment and punishment. And even while they are ruining the place, they are telling their superiors in government how well everything is going - a whole tissue of fabrications!" Brian snorted. So far as Brian was concerned, the Workers' Committees that made it so difficult to fire incompetent people had been fatal to morale in the whole Game Department. "Like so many of these socialist ideas, the theory is all very well, but it just doesn't work." The matter was complicated by the cumbersome bureaucratic structure of the Tanzanian government in which scarcely anyone dared to take responsibility, far less risks, lest he be set upon by his ambitious peers, particularly where the decision involved a white man. As Rick Bonham said, speaking from the hard experience of trying to arrange the logistics of this safari, Tanzanians seemed more "brainwashed" than Kenyans in regard to the perils of cooperating with whites, whom they were apt to obstruct as a matter of course rather than be accused of collaborating with "Europeans". Had it not been for the interest and cooperation of Fred Lwezaula, head of the Game Department, and especially of Costy Mlay, one of President Nyerere's aides who had once been on Nicholson's staff in the Selous, this safari could never have taken place. (When Brian and I called on Mr. Mlay in Dar-es-Salaam in September, I found his intelligent concern for wildlife and the Selous extremely heartening; he understood perhaps better than we did how crucial it was that the Selous be saved, not only for economic reasons and for Tanzania's future but as a
At Nakilala, where we arrived just before nightfall, Mwakupalu made quick tea while Brian paced around, disgusted; he was now convinced that someone had been out "hammering animals" for food, and perhaps for money. This region had recently been burned, and there was no regrowth to attract animals; instead, the black floor of the woods,
SAND RIVERS
with its cinder dust and gloom, seemed to emphasize the silence and the emptiness. It was plain to see that there was no systematic burning any more, Brian said, far less the foot patrols that were absolutely necessary if new game scouts were to learn their area. Effective patrols could not be made in vehicles, and anyway, all but the main tracks had been allowed to grow over and deteriorate to such a degree that the majority were now impassable. Without patrols, the bloody poachers could come in here as they pleased, the whole place would be shot to pieces, and meanwhile the bureaucrats, the townspeople who had been assigned by the socialist government to training in wildlife management^ whether they cared about wildlife or not, had taken over the Game Department from the good people Brian himself had trained. His people were less educated, no doubt, but at least they were interested and committed, with a sense of pride and accomplishment in their work, and in some cases - he pointed at old Saidi - with a whole family tradition behind them. "These lazy people they have now do nothing but sit around down here trying to figure out how they can get themselves sent somewhere else. We were proud of this place, and these people despise it! For them, it is banishment and punishment. And even while they are ruining the place, they are telling their superiors in government how well everything is going - a whole tissue of fabrications!" Brian snorted. So far as Brian was concerned, the Workers' Committees that made it so difficult to fire incompetent people had been fatal to morale in the whole Game Department. "Like so many of these socialist ideas, the theory is all very well, but it just doesn't work." The matter was complicated by the cumbersome bureaucratic structure of the Tanzanian government in which scarcely anyone dared to take responsibility, far less risks, lest he be set upon by his ambitious peers, particularly where the decision involved a white man. As Rick Bonham said, speaking from the hard experience of trying to arrange the logistics of this safari, Tanzanians seemed more "brainwashed" than Kenyans in regard to the perils of cooperating with whites, whom they were apt to obstruct as a matter of course rather than be accused of collaborating with "Europeans". Had it not been for the interest and cooperation of Fred Lwezaula, head of the Game Department, and especially of Costy Mlay, one of President Nyerere's aides who had once been on Nicholson's staff in the Selous, this safari could never have taken place. (When Brian and I called on Mr. Mlay in Dar-es-Salaam in September, I found his intelligent concern for wildlife and the Selous extremely heartening; he understood perhaps better than we did how crucial it was that the Selous be saved, not only for economic reasons and for Tanzania's future but as a
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