Chapter 6 — Mijbil the Otter

Chapter 6 is a memoir by Gavin Maxwell about bringing an otter from Iraq to his home in Scotland. It narrates how he obtained the otter, named Mijbil, brought it to England, and chronicles the otter's behavior, antics, and the bond that developed between them.

Gavin Maxwell is the narrator. He is a writer who lives in a cottage at Camusfearna in the West Highlands of Scotland. After his dog Jonnie died, he decided to keep an otter as a pet instead.

While in Basra, Iraq, Maxwell casually mentioned to a friend that he wanted to keep an otter. His friend told him otters were common in the Tigris marshes and often tamed by Arabs. Days later, two Arabs arrived at his door with Mij in a sack, along with a note from his friend saying 'Here is your otter.'

Mijbil was a previously unknown species. After Maxwell brought him to England, zoologists christened him Lutrogale perspicillata maxwelli, or Maxwell's otter, named after the narrator.

For the first twenty-four hours, Mij was neither hostile nor friendly; he was simply aloof and indifferent, choosing to sleep on the floor far from Maxwell's bed. The second night, he came onto Maxwell's bed and began to lose his apathy, showing keen interest in his surroundings.

Mijbil had an intense love for water. When taken to the bathroom, he went wild with joy, plunging and rolling, shooting up and down the bathtub underwater. He would overturn bowls or sit in them and splash until they overflowed, making enough noise for a hippo. He even learned to turn taps with his paws.

Mij played with rubber balls like a four-footed soccer player, using all four feet to dribble. His favorite play was lying on his back juggling marbles between his paws without dropping them. In London, he invented a game with a damaged suitcase, rolling a ping-pong ball down it and ambushing it at the other end.

Maxwell put Mij in an eighteen-inch square box. Before boarding, Mij tore the lining to shreds, and blood trickled from the airholes. During the flight, when allowed out of the box, Mij escaped at high speed down the aircraft, causing passengers to shriek and scream about a rat. A woman stood up screaming, and Maxwell found curry on his face. Eventually, Mij bounded onto Maxwell's knee and nuzzled his face with recognition.

The chapter demonstrates Mij's intelligence through multiple incidents: he learned to follow Maxwell without a lead, turned taps with his paws (though sometimes in the wrong direction with frustration), invented his own games, and developed compulsive habits on walks in London streets, like children who must step on paving block centers or touch every seventh railing.

Maxwell describes it as 'a thraldom to otters, an otter fixation' that began with opening Mij's sack and has not yet ended. He notes that most other people who have owned otters share this same fixation.

Londoners did not recognize the otter and made various guesses about what animal it was. Guesses included a baby seal, squirrel, walrus, beaver, bear cub, leopard, hippo, and even a brontosaur. One laborer asked incredulously, 'Here, Mister — what is that supposed to be?' Maxwell was surprised by the variety of conjectural questions.

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