The lizard and the hermit

Decades before New Zealand-born Keith Stewart landed on his 88-acre farm in Orange County, NY, where he would grow organic vegetables and herbs for 34 years and teach up-and-coming farmers, his personal pilgrimage included a Thoreauvian stretch living solo in the sparsely populated Australian outback. Now retired from farming, Stewart has been cleaning up a roughly scribbled journal he kept during that formative stretch in 1972, thinking he might turn it into a book. Meanwhile, his wife, artist Flavia Baccarella, is working on woodcuts to accompany the journal. They have generously allowed ‘Dirt’ to publish excerpts of ‘The Alone Trip’ serially. This is part two.

Sept 15, 1972: A neighbor visits

Just finished a lunch of brown rice, red beans and green ant tea. The colors and substances of these three are blending happily in my belly. The sun is hot on my shoulders and arms. The pool’s surface is sparkling. Suddenly a fat goanna (the Australian term for any of numerous species of monitor lizards endemic to Australia) emerges from the tall grass at the water’s edge. The reptile, about four feet long, makes its way slowly and deliberately, across the sand to the piece of sacking upon which I sleep at night. With each step a reedy tongue darts out in front.

Now this substantial lizard sprawls out on the sand like a great reptilian cat, its body curved and heavy, its head barely raised, its small eyes aimed straight at me. A discreet, almost sly peek under the sack ground cloth, and the reptile continues slowly along the beach front. Again, it stops and is staring at me, this time from a classic cobra stance — tip of tail to front legs flat in the sand, head and neck stiffly raised, the yellowy skin of its throat pulsating. For several moments the animal remains quite still, then it turns and lumbers back to the pool, slips into the water and disappears.

This lizard is not altogether a stranger to me. Three or four times I’ve caught a glimpse of him (I’m guessing, without any evidence, it’s a male) in the water near the spot where I wash each morning. But, precisely at the instant of my seeing him, he has always disappeared under the same large, partly submerged rock, which I believe to be his hiding place. Why, after weeks of extreme wariness, should he so boldly show himself to me? I can think of two possible reasons. One, he is asserting territorial rights. His blatant, almost cocky display may be his way of telling me he was here first, that this is his place. Or, two, he is simply moved by curiosity, by a desire to investigate the extraordinary two-legged creature of considerable height and odd habits who has apparently become his neighbor. Whatever his motives, I keenly await further meetings. Meanwhile, I’ll remember to place any leftover pieces of fish in the watery shallows of his protective rock.

A developing friendship?

A spectacular development in my relationship with the neighboring goanna. It was a few days ago that he emerged from the water and passed some time inspecting my camp. I’ve seen him once since then but only briefly. Today, again in mid-morning, he made his second more brazen appearance, at first poking his head tentatively out of the water then quickly assuming a surprising air of confidence, which, were I not aware of the folly of anthropomorphism, I might guess he had given prior consideration to and perhaps even some amount of rehearsal. Thus, he proceeded to swagger toward me. At the time, I was sitting on a rock, repairing a torn sneaker. He approached to within six feet, watched me closely for a few moments, then deposited himself flatly in the sand. I continued with what I was doing, pretending at first not to notice him, then to be aware of his presence but barely concerned by it. Perhaps taking the cue from me, he acted with similar disinterest, repositioned his head and looked out over the pool. We remained in such proximity to one another for several minutes, neither wanting to be the one to acknowledge definite recognition of the other. Then I calmly stood up and walked away, noticing from a distance that the goanna’s response was to move only his neck and head in my direction.

I made a show of rummaging about in my supplies then left the camp via the rear exit, my purpose being to catch one of the numerous small frogs that I sometimes use as bait. They live during daylight hours under damp rocks a hundred feet or so upstream from my camp. Having caught a frog, I returned to camp, passing within several feet of the goanna. I baited a hook and threw my line into the pool. Soon I caught a medium sized bream, one which, under different circumstances, would have provided me with a smaller than average meal. I unhooked the fish, walked to within several feet of the goanna, and tossed it toward him.

In a flash, he sprang toward the flapping fish, stopped short for a couple of seconds to observe it, touched it with his tongue, then speedily took the fish’s head in his mouth and moved a few yards closer to his sheltering rock. For two or three minutes he stayed in place, keeping a firm hold on the unfortunate fish which eventually stopped flapping. Then, perhaps reacting to a sudden movement of mine, he dropped the catch and slipped back into the water. I haven’t seen him since. The lifeless fish remained where he left it, at the water’s edge. Within an hour, though, it disappeared.

Cedric Bartholomew Galumphant

Cedric is the name I have given the goanna. Well, to be exact, his full name is Cedric Bartholomew Galumphant. Yes, “Galumphant” is an unusual word and perhaps not even a recognized word at all. If that’s the case, I’ll take credit for creating it to describe the goanna’s lumbering, heavy bodied, short-legged gait.

This morning, Cedric and I spent time getting better acquainted and perhaps cementing a relationship that promises to be mutually beneficial. The benefit to Cedric, of course, is the fish I am willing to provide and the benefit to me, presumably a more needy social creature, is the pleasure of his company. And it might be that one or the other, or even both of us will become mentally or emotionally enlarged by our inter-species contact. That would be a positive.

We encountered each other as I was approaching the pool for my first swim of the day. Cedric quickly moved aside to make way for me but remained on land as I entered the water, rinsed myself and proceeded to swim my usual four laps. At one turning point, I looked up and noticed he was watching me through the reeds at the pool’s edge. Once out of the water I dried off in the sun and performed a set of breathing exercises. Meanwhile, Cedric explored the campsite. With his exceptional tongue, he investigated pieces of clothing and equipment. At the same time, he mostly kept his gaze on me, I’m guessing, to make sure I did not make any untoward and possibly threatening moves in his direction.

Again, I decided to try to win his friendship with a gift of fish. This time, so as not to overly deplete my own food supply, I used a smaller hook and, for bait, a shred of fish garnered from the skeletal remains of last night’s meal. I threw the line into shallow water. As expected, I soon caught one of the plentiful small fish. I unhooked the fish and tossed it to where Cedric was sitting about 15 feet away. Instantly, he pounced and snatched the flapping fish between his jaws. He then withdrew to a grassy patch close to the pool’s edge. Though my view was somewhat obscured, he appeared to gulp down this windfall of a breakfast.

I went on with the morning’s activities: folded and put away some clothing, shook out the yoga mat and laid it on the sand, then fetched my yoga instruction book and tossed it onto the mat. Cedric, whom I had been ignoring, immediately darted from his grassy hiding place, arriving within inches of the book. His slender tongue quickly determined that a paperback was not to his taste. He remained on the beach, however, and seemed to react with anticipation to any sudden move I made. When I went to wash my hands at the spot where the fish had been caught, he came over and extended his tongue several times, as if to tell me he was accustomed to a more substantial breakfast. Like a doting parent, I tried to convey that I understood what he wanted and set about providing him with it.

As the second fish came out of the water Cedric attempted to grab it before I had a chance to remove the hook, forcing me to sharply jerk the line away from him and loudly express my disapproval. Of course, how could he know that swallowing a hooked fish would be a grave mistake? He did, however, back off a few feet, seeming to understand my rebuke of his table manners. But when I threw him the second fish, he wasted no time snatching and devouring it. We went on in this way until I had caught four small fish and he had eaten all of them, always several feet away and with his back, or more accurately, his tail facing me. That’s enough, I thought. I’m over-indulging this lizard, perhaps even to his own detriment. How many fish can that stomach of his hold? And the fish themselves are paying a heavy price. I rolled the nylon line onto the hand spool, removed a remnant of bait, secured the hook and float and stowed the tackle out of his reach.

It was time to get on with the morning yoga exercises. With no formal training, I am totally dependent on a yoga book for beginners that I purchased in Darwin. I started with the adamant posture, kneeling with knees together, big toes touching each other, torso erect, and sitting on my calf muscles and upturned heels. This is not a super comfortable position, but it is centering and better for me than sitting in the cross-legged “easy” pose which I don’t find easy at all. Along with some other wished for attributes, suppleness was not genetically bequeathed to me. Nor have I been able to acquire it. But I did manage to remain quite still in the adamant posture for several minutes. Cedric must have noted this. Slowly, but deliberately, he stepped onto the mat, came up to me and ever so lightly touched one of my knees with his telling tongue. No pun intended, I can honestly report I felt touched in more ways than one. Cedric, too, seemed positively reassured. He settled down on the sack mat a couple of feet from me, moving his head only occasionally, as I proceeded with my elementary yoga positions, all the while careful to avoid any sudden moves.

At one point I gently extended a hand in his direction, very tentatively. As I did so, I recalled an unusual warning given me while returning from the light meter battery trip to Darwin. On one of my hitchhiking rides, I told the driver that a neighboring goanna had visited my campsite and showed some interest in me. The driver proceeded to tell me that a goanna’s bite will leave a festering wound which, even after it has healed, will continue to break open at the same time annually for seven years. That’s a bit far-fetched I thought, but did not say so. But here I am, a stranger in a strange land. However unlikely the driver’s warning might be, it suddenly seemed reasonable to give it some slight credence. Why should I try to prove the man wrong? Yes, I did feel an urge to touch Cedric but extended my hand in his direction only once. It was probably just as well that his response was merely to pull back a few inches.

My yoga session finished, I quietly got up, took another swim to cool off, gathered some kindling, built a small fire, and made a cup of tea which I drank with a portion of rice left over from breakfast. Cedric appeared relaxed. For a while he lay basking in the sun then selected a more shaded spot to continue his mid-day rest and presumably digest the four fish in his swollen belly.