The Ragged Edge of the World (34 page)

I got hold of two simple hammocks we'd brought along and set them up in the nearby forest, away from the ants' path. In doing so I drove a spiky vine clear through my thumb, releasing a gusher of blood to entice God knows what other predators that might be hanging around. Then it started to rain. When the weather cleared, I heard a leopard cough. So much for our first day.

The next morning we begin crossing the swamps that guard the Ndoki. At one point I missed a post and sank in the muck to my chest before I managed to grab a root. As we moved through the swamps we began to approach the maze of oxbows and secondary channels of the Ndoki River.

The river itself is unnavigable. Channels become swamps become dead ends; fallen trees and branches are everywhere. Kuroda and Mitani had found a relatively narrow spot where they could cross the deepest part of the water in a small pirogue. We headed there and spent the next couple of hours ferrying ourselves and our bags across.

It was while out on the river that I finally realized how close to paradise our hike had brought us. The day was bright and dry, and soft breezes carried fragrant pollens. The water was absolutely pure. The only sounds were the rustlings of animals and insects. Mike had described the crossing into the Ndoki as a trip back to the Pleistocene, a time before humanity began reshaping the planet to its short-term needs. He was right, and it was the best feeling in the world.

When I first wrote about the Ndoki, my reporting that people had not been in the area had been greeted with widespread skepticism. Indeed, one of my
Time
colleagues insisted that Pygmies had taken him through the region some years earlier. When I brought this up with Mike Fay, he said that the man must have been confused about where he'd been, because the Pygmies were terrified of the place, and there was no evidence that they had ever ventured in before Kuroda entered the forest in 1987.

The neighboring Pygmies had no songs or stories about the region, and if they had actually ever been in the Ndoki, Mike argued, that would not be the case. The night before we crossed, Mike said the Pygmies had been talking about going into the area inhabited by Mokeli Mbembe—a monster of Pygmy lore that lives in the open areas. Mike suspected that the creature was actually a black rhino, an animal that Pygmies would not otherwise have encountered in the forest. (Years later Richard Carroll of the World Wildlife Fund confirmed this when he showed a rhino footprint to a group of Pygmies, who identified it as the track of Mokeli Mbembe.)

The physical barriers of the Ndoki also created a practical impediment for the Pygmies. Killing animals there would have been the easiest hunting any Pygmy had ever done, but getting the carcasses out would have been all but impossible. The river could not be crossed without a pirogue, and even if the resourceful Pygmies could have solved that problem, carrying the meat across miles of swamp would have presented a formidable challenge. The combination of superstition, physical barriers, and the availability of ample game outside the Ndoki protected the place for at least several hundred years.

The most dramatic evidence of the absence of humans, however, was the behavior of the local animals themselves. Once we crossed the river and began hiking toward Mbeli Bai, where we were to spend the night, we began to encounter animals, glorious numbers of them. When we came across a troop of red colobus monkeys they jumped a bit upon seeing us, but made no effort to flee. The same thing happened when we saw gray-cheeked mangabeys. Our first gorilla bellowed and did a false charge, but then, instead of moving off, he simply stopped and stared at us. All of these creatures would have fled immediately had we encountered them just 20 miles away. Their lack of fear was a poignant indication that they knew nothing about humans.

One of my concerns about this expedition had been that, even though my trip had been motivated by a genuine desire to help save this forest, I might inadvertently contribute to its destruction. The most obvious way this might happen would be by demystifying the region for the Pygmies. As game disappeared from the surrounding forest, the temptation of healthy, well-fed animals that took no fright at the presence of hunters might prove irresistible for them, Mokeli Mbembe or not.

So far, with one exception, that hasn't been the case. The one exception is somewhat surprising, because the man who brought a group of Pygmies into the Ndoki on a hunting expedition was not a local bush meat entrepreneur or trophy hunter, but Louis Sarno, a supposedly enlightened expatriate and the great champion of Pygmy culture. Apparently, at one point when game was scarce, Sarno went with a group into the Ndoki from the north (the one place where it is not girded by swamps). When the depredations were discovered, however, Sarno was chastened and has not taken Pygmies into the forest since.

In years prior to our expedition, Mike Fay himself had thought it acceptable to hunt in the Ndoki for scientific purposes. His argument was that it was not possible to carry enough food for an extended expedition through the forest and that the trivial amount of game that would be hunted would have no impact on the ecosystem. Mike is a passionate guy, and he was scornful of the naïveté of bleeding hearts who were absolutist about hunting.

When he shared his thoughts on the subject, my reaction was that he might be right in practical terms, but wrong in all other ways. Here was an opportunity to see animals as though humans were not on the planet. Why change that by showing them that we were killers? Surviving animals, at least the smarter ones, would quickly learn to run away from humans when they were hunted, which would mean that subsequent researchers would not have the advantage of studying naïve creatures.

More to the point, I argued that it would make it even more difficult to convince the Pygmies that hunting in the Ndoki was improper if they saw that it was permissible when they accompanied white researchers. And, although I did not say this to Mike, I simply felt that it was just wrong to introduce hunting into one of the only places on earth where animals were safe from guns, traps and poisons. I guess that made me a bleeding heart.

By the time I went into the forest with Mike, however, he, too, had decided that the Ndoki should be kept safe from hunting, even if done by researchers for the most noble reasons. I don't know who convinced him, but it wasn't me.

During this first day in the Ndoki, Karen and I had a vivid demonstration of the difference between Pygmies and all other peoples in the forest. We were hiking in a couple of different groups, and, for a time, Karen and I separated from the main group accompanied by our one porter, who was Bantu. He billed himself as a tracker and had spent a good deal of time in the forest, since he was married to a Pygmy woman and lived in a Pygmy village. We were not unduly concerned about being separated, because at that point we were generally following the river. Within fifteen minutes of parting company from the Pygmies, however, we were lost, and it was quite clear that our tracker was guessing where we should go. Eventually, one of the other Pygmies tracked us down and showed us the way. When I asked him how he knew where he was going, he pointed out a broken leaf along the trail. Amid this ocean of green, it was like picking out a particular grain of sand on a beach.

After we set up camp for the night, the Pygmies became somewhat withdrawn. Mike sat down to talk with them after dinner to see what was wrong and discovered that they didn't want to go any farther. I almost laughed, since I had never expected to be living out the cliché of every B movie about exploration—“At one point the porters refused to go on!” It turned out that they were afraid of this forest not only because of Mokeli Mbembe. The word
ndoki
means “sorcerer” in Lingala, and the Pygmies, peerless masters of the forest, were reluctant to find out whether their fears were justified. With the help of Ndokanda, who had accompanied him on a trip into the Ndoki some years earlier, Mike was able to convince the rest that their fears were unwarranted. I had mixed feelings about this victory. Without the Pygmies it would have been exceedingly difficult to continue, but if they overcame their fear, the forest's security would rest on human vigilance alone—a far more porous defense than religious terror.

Ndokanda had an interesting history. He was born across the Sangha River in Cameroon, and by turns had worked for a coffee plantation, for a logging concession and as an elephant poacher before Mike Fay hired him to help stop poaching. As we hiked it was Ndokanda who led the way. When I asked him how Ndokanda knew where to go, Mike replied, “He's probably following our tracks from 1990” (two years earlier). Little did he know then how true that statement was.

The next day we set off into what Mike jokingly called “the unknown.” The Pygmies now became reluctant to take the lead. Given the loads they were carrying, it was an entirely reasonable position, since taking the lead also meant hacking a path with a machete. It promised to be an arduous hike, since we would have to leave the broad elephant trails and bushwhack through dense brush. Our goal—and Mike's ostensible reason for this expedition—was to find a clearing that he and Ndokanda had come across during an expedition two years earlier. Poring over satellite maps, Mike picked a path that would take us through uncharted forest. I'd brought along some good cigars, and I offered Ndokanda one if he was willing to cut the trail.

“You bet!” he said in Lingala, but after just forty minutes of work, he sat down. Mike, getting impatient, made a show of taking the machete, in part to goad the Pygmies. As we headed off he remarked, “The one thing Pygmies can't stand is for a white guy to lead in the forest.”

We made our way on a zigzag path, trying to head south and east. Wherever we could we took advantage of elephant trails, which tended to hew to a north-south/east-west grid. Unfortunately, we did not find many east-west trails and Mike finally said, “We've got to head east!” and began hacking through the tree-falls and brush with a vengeance. At some points we were literally tunneling through the underbrush. By 3:30 I was parched beyond all measure. It was unclear whether we would find any water by nightfall, and we were facing the prospect of spending the night dangerously dehydrated. The Pygmies were nowhere to be seen.

As our thirst approached the unbearable, I heard Mike say, “Aha!” He'd spotted a thick vine, and after he hacked off a section at just the right spot, pure water began spurting into his mouth. I grabbed his machete and sliced at the plant called
Sissus danclydgia,
but managed to taste only a few remaining drops.

Here's what happened next (taken from
The Parrot's Lament
):

The astonishment was, in fact, mutual, as the Pygmies could scarcely believe that white guys could even come close to finding this place. Later, Ndokanda, impressed by Mike's orienteering, offered a condescending and paternalistic compliment: “You are coming along pretty good.”

That night I gave the Pygmies one of my precious trove of cigars. Sharing the communal wealth, they passed it around. Despite Mike's warnings that it was not something to be inhaled, each took a deep draw, causing the ash to increase visibly as the cigar passed from man to man. They must have had lungs of leather, since none of them so much as coughed, although one of the group remarked with approval, “That's strong!”

Five minutes later, when they had extracted the last toke (from a cigar that should have lasted forty minutes), Mike asked them whether it would be a good idea to build a road through the forest. He did this for my benefit, to make a point. They became visibly excited at this question, and I could see the scales falling from their eyes as though they'd finally figured out why we were really in the forest.

Samori, one of the most accomplished trackers, was the first to speak up. “Yes, build a road,” he said. “It will mean lots of money.” Rising to this potential opportunity, he went on, “We'll build it for you. We'll set up camp at Mbeli Bai [right in the middle of the park]; we'll bring our women, and we'll work until 2 p.m.” (Apparently this was considered a reasonable workday in Pygmy culture.)

As Ndokanda launched into a long explanation of where he would put the road, another tracker, Joachime, jumped in: “Make it straight,” he said, “not that zigzag path you took today.”

Samori then piped up, still pursuing his original line of thought. “If you pay us well,” he said with the subtly double-edged words of a true negotiator, “the work will go well.” Having spent many hours trying to convince the Pygmies of the evils that follow roads, Mike gave me a long-suffering look.

The conversation then turned to elephants. “Good or bad?” we asked the Pygmies. Ndokanda, the former elephant poacher, answered unequivocally. “Good,” he said. “This is their village, their real city.” He was exactly right. Their grid of paths connected various feeding spots, plazas for socializing, and even health facilities. They used the mud baths, for instance, to get minerals, but also to remove ticks.

When I asked them which was the smartest animal, Somari was the quickest with an answer: “Chimps,” he said, echoing what I had earlier heard from Bakombe in the Central African Republic, “because they can kill gorillas.” He said they fought all the time. Ndokanda was skeptical, noting that he had never seen such a thing, but Somari insisted that he had witnessed a chimp smashing a gorilla with a stick. Ndokanda arched an eyebrow and, according to Mike, asked in Sangho, “Oh, really?”