Drums Along the Congo Page 23

  AFTERWORD

  SEGMENTED WORMS the size of school buses, which breed off the California coast, grab my attention. The world’s largest earwigs were last sighted on Saint Helena Island in 1967, and I wonder what happened to them. Unconfirmed reports of killer snails with painted shells as big as Volkswagen bugs sound intriguing, certainly worth checking out. Where is that darn Tasmanian tiger anyway? Meandering in the jet stream also has its appeal, as does stumbling on a rare desert bloom. What exactly colors those white blanks on a world map? I’d like to know. Since none of my friends will join me on these investigations of the obscure, I’ll probably take off alone.

  However, without friends, I’d be homebound. Heather Schroder, David Rottner, and Ike Williams fend off ill-mannered collection agencies. Virginia Reath and Kevin Cahill prepare my medical kits and debug me after I return; Virginia’s salves are wondrous. James Angell, my writing partner, and Harry Foster and Peg Anderson keep the words flowing; George Trow maintains the level of what’s interesting. Thinking back to Brazzaville, I remember fondly the help of the Lukenses, Tuckers, Sieferts, and Laxenaires. Family, of course, is important, especially my brother, Conn. Bing West pulls strings I dare not touch. Virginia Creeper develops the images and sets the tone, while Elizabeth McFadden, my love, reads, edits, advises, and somehow deals with it all.

  Open for business: ceremonial spears and a quiver filled with broom cuttings are traditional symbols of power marking the home of a village chief. The empty chair means the chief is in, his office open to all comers.

  Congolese children check me out. “Cheap junk, mister,” they say, dismissing the pencils, knives and other catchpenny items I brought to hand out as gifts.

  A vegetable dealer sculls downstream as we land at Djéké. It’s customary for travelers to stop and pay a toll for safe passage through tribal lands, usually a handful of salt and a gourd of palm wine. We offered kilos of salt and cases of scotch.

  After I was arrested, Theo, at left, was assigned to make sure I didn’t skip bail. The Brazzaville authorities detailed Innocent to accompany me into the rain forest.

  The percussion center of the world: Boha is within paddling distance of Tomtom and Bongo, and local musicians can coax sweet sounds form almost anything, including rusty fifty-five gallon barrels and empty aerosol cans.

  Two village councilmen and the chief of Boha moments after voting to allow me to proceed with the search for the living dinosaur on their tribal territory.

  A Boha councilman prepares villagers for our sendoff down a jungle trail leading to Lake Télé, reputed lair of Mokele-Mbembe.

  Our gang: from left to right, Gabriel, Theo, Raymond, Innocent, and Ange.

  Ange prepares his pack, made from vanilla-bean vine and philodendron.

  This two-foot reptile is a toddler compared to the “grandfather” lizard Raymond hoped to spear. In Zaire there are lizards the size of limousines, called chipekwes.

  Butterfly breakthrough: many tropical lepidopterists recommend snake or crocodile meat as a butterfly lure, however, I discovered by chance that a pair of ripe socks left in the sun outperforms all other lures.

  How big was it? Raymond uses a stick to describe the width of a giant python he once killed.

  Lake Télé is ringed by eleven inlets, each clogged with lily pads and each a perfect nesting spot for a twenty-ton dinosaur.

  After a morning of birding, I return to the camp and rush for a camera, sure a brontosaurus has just surfaced, but it is only Innocent bathing.

  Lake Télé has changed little in 60 million years. Cycads abd tree ferns line the shore, providing shade for air-breathing fish and tree-climbing frogs. It seems one of the likeliest places on earth for a dinosaur sighting.

  In the distance a periscope shape cuts through the surface of Lake Télé.

  Mokele-Mbembe, perhaps?

  Gabriel and I at trail’s end.

  A diorama sighting of Mokele-Mbembe in Milwaukee.

  (David Robbins, Institute of Comedy)

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  Copyright © 1993, 2011 by Rory Nugent

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-3663-4

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