346 THE ODYSSEY OF AN ANIMAL COLLECTOR 
hear from my correspondent in Spanish Guinea that his young 
gorilla had died. 
In spite of all this the collection was an interesting one and I 
had the satisfaction of knowing that if I could land the picathartes 
home alive, all would have been worth while. I decided to go 
home direct by an Elder Fyffes banana boat from the port of Tiko. 
This is the center for the banana export trade, which is in the 
hands of the Government-sponsored Cameroons Food Corpora- 
tion. I had written to the head of this concern to see if I could get 
accommodation for myself and birds for one night. The blunt 
reply was that neither could be accommodated anywhere in Tiko. 
I left the Mungo River by lorry at about eight o’clock one night 
and arrived at Tiko about one a.m. I tried to doze in the front of 
the lorry but the mosquitoes made this well-nigh impossible. 
At Tiko the road terminus is some miles from the quayside and 
the intervening journey has to be made by Deceauville railway. 
When everything was led and at last loaded onto open trucks, the 
inevitable rain set in and it was midday before everything was 
loaded, by which time I was feeling exceedingly weary. The one 
bright spot when we arrived was the helpfulness of the captain 
of the banana boat, who came down to greet me and to inspect 
the livestock. He took an immediate liking to Cholmondley and 
led him up the gangway to his cabin, where he remained for 
hours before the rest of the livestock was shipped. Apparently 
Cholmondley was entertained at lunch in the Captain’s cabin and 
behaved in an orderly dignified manner, drinking beer with the 
rest. 
For some days I hardly saw Cholmondley at all as I gathered 
he helped the quartermaster to steer the ship when he wasn’t en- 
tertaining the officers. It was indeed a comical sight to see a waiter 
of the old school, with cloth over arm, approach Cholmondley 
and place his food before him as if he were serving a distinguished 
passenger. In all due respect to Cholmondley he never once broke 
any crockery or knocked over a glass. It always delighted everyone 
to see him open a box of matches and light his own cigarette. To 
enjoy this to the full he invariably lay on his back with his feet up 
against something, blowing the smoke through his nose. 
The arrival in England of the picathartes caused tremendous 
_—_ 
