Chapter Twenty-T hree 
BRITISH CAMEROONS 
HROUGH various collections that had arrived since the war 
the Zoo was now fairly well stocked with the more easily 
acquired mammals, and so it began to turn its attention to odd 
creatures such as gorillas, orang-utans, gibbons and Spider 
Monkeys that occur in widely separated habitats. 
Early in 1948 the Zoo heard from an official in Spanish Guinea 
that he had a young gorilla for disposal. Travel to such places 
was extremely difficult owing to exchange regulations, so it was 
decided to send me to British Cameroons, which, on the map, is 
a neighboring country, though as far as communications go might 
well be the other side of the earth. 
With memories of my much earlier visit to French Cameroons 
I was confident that I could get a good collection of birds, which 
were sorely needed, and a number of interesting small forest- 
dwelling mammals, so whether the gorilla materialized or not, the 
trip would be well worth while. I left for Lagos in Nigeria, where 
I was lucky enough to find boat transport to Victoria, the port of 
British Cameroons, without much difficulty. 
Victoria is beautifully situated in Ambas Bay and is dominated 
by Cameroon Mountain (13,300 feet), whose lower slopes reach 
to within about five miles of the port. On a clear day the 
mountains on the Spanish island of Fernando Po can be seen as 
one looks westwards across the Gulf of Guinea. 
British Cameroons is a mandated territory, administered by 
Nigeria, though communications between the two are, or were, 
exceedingly poor. Unlike French Cameroons, which boasts hotels 
and railways, the British section has no such refinements. On 
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