Born Free Page 15
After she had had a good meal and drunk some water she rubbed her head affectionately against us, walked about thirty yards down the river, lay down and had a doze. We left her alone, so that she should feel at ease. When I looked for her at teatime she had gone.
We followed her spoor for a short way; it led towards the rock range, but we soon lost it and returned none the wiser about her cubs. However, now that we were reassured about Elsa our morale was restored.
During the night we heard her lion calling from the other side of the river, but she did not answer him.
Next day we began to worry about the cubs. If they were alive was their mother able to suckle them from those dry teats? We tried to comfort ourselves by saying that the red rings round them were probably due to blood vessels being broken by suckling, but we were very anxious because we had been warned by zoo authorities that hand-reared lionesses often produced abnormal cubs which do not live, and indeed one of Elsa’s sisters had suffered such a misfortune. We felt we just must know about the cubs and rescue them if necessary. So the next morning we searched for five hours, but we did not find so much as a dropping or a crushed leaf, let alone any spoor to show where Elsa’s nursery was.
We carried on equally unsuccessfully in the afternoon. While plodding through the bush George nearly stepped on an exceptionally large puff adder and was lucky to be able to shoot it just before it could strike.
Half an hour later we heard Ibrahim popping off a gun, a signal that Elsa had arrived in camp.
Obviously she had responded to the shot with which George had dispatched the puff adder.
She was most affectionate to us when we got back, but we were alarmed to observe that her teats were still small and dry. Ibrahim, however, assured us that when she had arrived they and her milk glands had been enormous, hanging low and swinging from side to side.
He also told us that her behaviour had been very unusual. When he fetched the gun from the kitchen which was in the direction from which she had come she dashed angrily at him. Possibly she thought he was going to her cubs. Later when he went to the studio to collect her meat which was hanging there in the shade, she had prevented him from touching her kill. After this she had settled on the Land Rover and it was then that Ibrahim noticed that her teats and glands had shrunk to their normal size. She had, he said, ‘tucked them up’, and he told us that camels and cattle can withhold their milk by retracting their teats. If then their owner insists on getting milk he is obliged to tie the animal to a tree and apply several tourniquets; these have the effect of raising the pressure of the blood in the muscles until it reaches a point when they automatically relax and it becomes possible to start milking. We wondered whether such a reaction explained the peculiar state of Elsa’s teats. Was it not possible that a lioness might be capable of a similar reaction and would contract her teats when hunting? Certainly if she could not do this she would be greatly handicapped by her heavy undercarriage, and besides this her teats might be injured by the thorny bush.
While we were asking ourselves these questions Elsa, having eaten enormously, had settled down and showed no intention of returning to her cubs.
This alarmed me because it was getting dark and the worst moment to leave them alone.
We tried to induce her to return to them by walking along the path down which she had come. She followed us reluctantly, listening alertly in the direction of the rock, but soon returned to camp. We wondered whether she might be afraid that we would follow her and find her cubs. Meanwhile she went back to her meal and it was only after she had methodically cleaned up every scrap of it that, much to our relief, she disappeared into the dark. Very likely she had waited till there was no light to make sure we could not follow her.
We were now convinced that she was looking after her cubs. But after the warnings we had had from the zoo experts we could not be happy until we had seen for ourselves that they were normal.
We made one more unsuccessful search before our return to Isiolo where we spent the last three days of December. On our way back to camp we nearly collided with two rhino and then met a small herd of elephant. We had no choice but to rush at them, hoping we should make it, but the big bull of the herd took umbrage and chased us for quite a long way. I did not enjoy this as elephants are the only wild animals which really frighten me.
We hooted several times before we reached camp to let Elsa know we were arriving and found her waiting for us on top of a large boulder at the point at which the track passes the end of the Big Rock.
She hopped in among the boys at the back of the Land Rover, then she went to the trailer in which there was a dead goat. I had rarely seen her so hungry.
I noticed at once that her teats were still small and dry; I squeezed them but no milk came. We thought this a bad sign and after she had spent seven hours in camp, eating and hopping on and off the Land Rover, we began to be afraid that she no longer had any cubs to look after. She only left us at two in the morning.
Very early we set out and followed her spoor which led towards the Big Rock. Close to it was what seemed to us an ideal home for a lioness and her family. Very large boulders gave complete shelter and they were surrounded by bush that was almost impenetrable. We made straight for the topmost boulder and from it tried to look down into the centre of the ‘den’. We saw no pugmarks but there were signs that some animal had used it as a lie-up.
Nearby we observed some old blood spoor. This was very close to the place where we had seen Elsa in labour, so we thought that she had perhaps given birth to the cubs there. On the other hand, we had been within three feet of it on one of our previous searches and it seemed almost impossible that Elsa should have been there hiding her cubs and not made us aware of her presence.
As though to prove that we were wrong in thinking this, after we had called loudly for half an hour, she suddenly appeared out of a cluster of bush only twenty yards away. She seemed rather shocked at seeing us, stared and kept silent and very still as though hoping we would not come nearer.
Perhaps we were so close to her nursery that she thought it better to appear and so prevent us from finding it. After a few moments, she walked up to us and was very affectionate to George, myself, Makedde and the Toto, but never uttered a sound. To my relief I saw that her teats were twice their normal length and that the hair around them was still wet from suckling.
Soon she went slowly back towards the bush and stood, for about five minutes, with her back turned towards us listening intently for any sound from the thicket. Then she sat down, still with her back turned to us. It was as though she wanted to say to us: ‘Here my private world begins and you must not trespass.’
It was a dignified demonstration and no words could have conveyed her wishes more clearly.
We sneaked away as quietly as we could, making a detour in order to climb to the top of the Big Rock. From it we looked down and saw her sitting just as we had left her.
Obviously she had got our scent, knew just what we were doing and did not intend to let us discover her lie-up.
This made me realize how unaware we had been, in spite of our intimacy with Elsa, of the reactions of wild animals. It amused me to remember how we had prepared ourselves against the possibility of the cubs being born in our tent and how we had flattered ourselves that Elsa regarded it as the place in which she felt safest. Although the spoor we had recently found had all led towards the lower rock, we thought it possible that the cubs had been born in the boulder hideout and that later Elsa had moved them about thirty yards to where they now were.
If this were the case she had probably made the move after the rains stopped – for while the boulder lie-up was rainproof, the new one was not, though otherwise it was an ideal nursery.
We decided that we must respect Elsa’s wishes and not try to see the cubs until she brought them to us, which we felt sure she would do one day. I determined to stay on in camp in order to provide her with food so that she would have no need to leave he
r family unguarded for long periods while she went out hunting for them. We also decided to take her meals to her, so as to reduce the time during which she had to desert the cubs.
We put our plan into immediate operation and that afternoon went by car close to her lie-up. We knew that Elsa would associate the vibrations of the engine with us and with food.
As we neared the place where we had last seen her we started to call out – maji, chakula, nyama – Swahili words, meaning water, food, meat, with which Elsa was familiar.
Soon she came, was as affectionate as usual and ate a lot. While she had her head in a basin, which we had sunk in the ground to keep it steady, and was busy drinking, we went off. She looked round when she heard the engine start but made no move to follow us.
Next morning we took her day’s rations but she failed to turn up, nor was she there when we went again in the afternoon. During the night a strange lion came to within fifteen yards of our tent and removed the remains.
After breakfast we followed his spoor which led to the Big Rock and pugmarks there showed that another lion had been with him. We hoped that Elsa was enjoying their company and that perhaps they were helping her with her housekeeping.
We went down to the river to see whether she had left any spoor there. She had not, but soon afterwards George, who was going to fetch another goat, met her near her rock. She was very thirsty, the aluminium drinking basin had gone and we wondered whether the other lions had stolen it. On his return George fed her and from her appetite he thought it unlikely that the lions had provided her with any of the food they had stolen.
Later in the day George went off to Isiolo. Elsa stayed in camp with me till the late afternoon, then I saw her sneak into the bush upstream and followed her. Obviously she did not wish to be observed, for when she caught my scent, she pretended to sharpen her claws on a tree. Then as soon as I turned my back on her, she jumped at me and knocked me over, as though to say, ‘That’s for spying on me!’ Now it was my turn to pretend that I had only come to bring more meat to her. She accepted my excuse, followed me and began eating again. After this nothing would induce her to return to the cubs until long after night had fallen and I was reading in my tent and she felt certain that I would not be likely to follow her.
During the following days I went on taking food to the spot near to which we believed the cubs to be. Whenever I met Elsa on these occasions, she took great pains to conceal the whereabouts of her lie-up, often doubling back on her tracks, no doubt to puzzle me.
One afternoon when I was passing the Big Rock I saw a very strange animal standing on it. In the dim light it looked like a cross between a hyena and a small lion. When it saw me it sneaked off with the gait of a cat. It had obviously spotted the cubs and I was much alarmed. Later when I brought up some food, Elsa came at once when I called her; she seemed unusually alert and was rather fierce to the Toto. I left her still eating on the roof of my truck. It was there that we placed the meat in the evening to keep it out of the reach of predators, few of which would be likely to risk jumping on to this unknown object, even if they were capable of doing so. I did not know what to do for the best. If I continued to leave food close to Elsa’s nursery, would it not attract predators? Alternatively, if I kept the meat in camp and Elsa had to desert her cubs to come and fetch it, might they not be killed while she was absent? Faced with these two unsatisfactory choices, I decided, on balance, to go on providing food near to her lie-up. When I did so on the following evening, I heard the growls of several lions close to me and Elsa appeared to be both very nervous and very thirsty.
After this I made up my mind that in spite of her disapproval I had better find out how many cubs there were and whether they were all right. I might then be able to help in an emergency. On 11 January I did an unpardonable thing. I left a Game Scout (Makedde was ill) with the rifle on the road below and, accompanied by the Toto, whom Elsa knew well, I climbed the rock face calling repeatedly to warn her of our approach. She did not answer. I told the Toto to take off his sandals so as not to make any noise.
When we had reached the top we stood on the edge of the cliff and raked the bush below with our field glasses. Immediately under us was the place from which Elsa had emerged that first time, when we had surprised her and she had stood on guard.
Now, there was no sign of her, but the place looked like a wellused nursery and was ideal for the purpose.
Although I was concentrating very hard on my examination of the bush below us I suddenly had a strange feeling, dropped my field glasses, turned and saw Elsa creeping up behind the Toto. I had just time to shout a warning to him before she knocked him down. She had crept up the rock behind us quite silently and the Toto only missed toppling over the cliff by a hair’s breadth and that mainly because his feet were bare which gave him the chance of getting a grip on the rock.
Next Elsa walked over to me and knocked me over in a friendly way, but it was very obvious that she was expressing annoyance at finding us so close to her cubs.
After this demonstration, she walked slowly along the crest of the rock, from time to time looking back over her shoulder to make sure that we were following her. Silently she led us to the far end of the ridge. There we climbed down into the bush. As soon as we were on level ground she rushed ahead, repeatedly turning her head back to confirm that we were coming.
In this way, she took us back to the road, but she made a wide detour, presumably to avoid passing near the cubs. I interpreted her complete silence as a wish not to alarm them or to prevent them from emerging and following us.
When we walk together I usually pat Elsa occasionally and she likes it, but today she would not allow me to touch her and made it clear that I was in disgrace. Even when she was eating her dinner on the roof of the car back in camp, whenever I came near her she turned away from me.
She did not go to the cubs until it was dark.
Now George came up from Isiolo and we changed guard. Elsa had made me feel that I could do no more spying on her; George had not had the same experience, so he had fewer inhibitions. My curiosity was immense and I felt that it would be a happy compromise if he did ‘the wrong thing’ and I were to profit by his misdeed.
12. We See the Cubs
One afternoon, while I was at our home in Isiolo a hundred miles away, George crept very quietly up Elsa’s Big Rock and peered over the top.
Below he saw her suckling two cubs and as her head was hidden by an overhanging rock, he felt sure that she had not seen him. Having seen the family, George went back to camp and collected a carcase.
We had brought a number of goats into camp so as to supply Elsa with food and thus prevent her from having to desert the cubs while she went hunting for them, and in doing so risk their being killed by predators.
After depositing the food nearby, George waited to see what would happen. Elsa did not come to fetch the meat. This made him feel guilty. The meat we had put near to where we imagined her to be had always been eaten. Did the fact that on this day she refused to go near the kill indicate that she was aware that George had spied on her? When, during the following day, she failed to come to camp, George feared that this might be the case. However, at nightfall she arrived and was so ravenously hungry that she even condescended to eat a dik-dik, which she usually despises. It was all he had been able to find for her, and I did not return from Isiolo till a few days later, having picked up a new supply of goats en route.
How thrilled I was upon arrival to hear the good news!
George left for Isiolo the next day and I took on the task of supplying Elsa with the vast quantity of food she needed while suckling the cubs.
I noticed very soon that while she was as affectionate as ever to me, even allowing me to hold bones while she gnawed at them, and equally affectionate to George when he was there, she had become much more reserved in her attitude towards Africans, and even her old friends Nuru and Makedde who had known her since she was a cub were not allowed to be as famili
ar with her as they had been before the arrival of her family.
One day Elsa caused me a lot of anxiety by arriving in camp soon after lunch and showing no sign of returning to her family after she had had her meal. When it got dark I tried to induce her to go back to them by walking in their direction accompanied by the Toto.
She began by following us but after some time turned into the bush, went forward a hundred yards and then sat down with her back towards us blocking our way.
Nothing would budge her, so we took the hint and retired hoping that once we were out of sight she would rejoin her cubs.
On the following day she again showed that she was determined to conceal the whereabouts of the cubs. The Toto and I were taking an afternoon stroll past the Big Rock, walking very quietly. Suddenly Elsa appeared, rubbed her head against my knees and then led us silently away from the Big Rock, where the cubs were, towards a collection of small rocks which we call the Zom rocks.
She crept in and out of crevices, passed between narrow clefts, and seemed to enjoy making us struggle through the most awkward places. If we fell behind she waited for us, often jerking her head as though to show that she expected us to follow her. Finally I sat down, partly to show that I knew I was being fooled.
After this Elsa left the Zom rocks and led us through thorny thickets and boulders, farther and farther away from her lie-up.
At times she sniffed long and portentously at promising places and seemed to be teasing us by trying to make us think that she was taking us to the cubs. Later we passed a place where she was in the habit of ambushing me. I was tired and not prepared to be knocked down, so I made a detour. When she realized this, she emerged from her hideout looking very dignified but obviously disappointed at being cheated of her fun.