Serpentine Mind
by Theodore Dalrymple (November 2013)
When I was young and taken to the zoo I always wanted to go straight to the reptile house. First, however, I had to see the boring old chimpanzees, lions, hippopotamuses, etc., because those were what my adult supervisors always wanted to see. (I remember the notice in the hippopotamus house, apologising for the smell but saying that we, that is to say the hippopotamuses, like it.)
The vogue for reptiles and tattoos has developed more or less pari passu. Having gained entrance to the exhibition (and sale) of reptiles, my hand having been stamped in India ink with the eye of a crocodile to show that I had paid my admission ($6.70), I spoke to a stallholder whom I liked immediately. He and his wife had been breeding reptiles for 25 years, she having been a keeper of reptiles at Paris zoo for many years, and their aim was not to make a profit but to prevent the importation of species direct from the wild. Smuggling of rare species still went on, he told me, though with the increased vigilance of the customs authorities it took a different form. Importation from counties of origin was still permitted provided the animals had been bred in captivity there, so now false birth certificates were issued by alleged reptile farmers or breeding centres. In other words, the regulations had made smuggling easier, not more difficult.
As rats to wanton snakes, are we to the gods.
I stopped the land rover and got out. The captain and his soldiers looked surprised. I took their surprise to be at my interest in what for them must have been an everyday sight since childhood. (We take for granted that other people will take for granted what we take for granted. Indeed, one could almost say: Tell me what you take for granted, and I will tell you where you are from.)
I approached the chameleon: it was, in my opinion, a fine specimen. I picked it up and heard a screech coming from the land rover. With the chameleon on the palm of my hand, delighted with my capture, I returned to the vehicle. To my surprise the captain and all his soldiers suddenly clambered out of it and ran helter-skelter into the bush. It was the chameleon that had terrified them, and they would not return until I had put it from me.
Later I heard that there was a local legend about chameleons: that once they climbed into your hair they never let go and remained entangled there for the rest of your life. I doubted that this could be the whole of the reason for the extreme funk of the soldiers, but it occurred to me that one way to take over the country (if these soldiers were anything to go by) was for conspirators to arrive simultaneously at strategic posts with a number of chameleons to frighten off the defenders of those posts. The coup would be a peaceful one and the conspirators would be safe so long as they kept the chameleons with them at all times.
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