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  I was very much alarmed at Elsa’s unusual behaviour. She had never done anything like this to a visitor and I could only interpret it as a sign of affection; if she had not done it in play she could have acted in a very different way. In spite of my remaining with Billy she forced herself a third time through the wicker gate before either George who was outside or I who was inside could stop her. Billy was standing up this time and, being tall and strong, braced himself against Elsa’s weight when she stood on her hind legs, resting her front paws on his shoulders, and nibbled at his ear. As soon as she released him I gave her such a beating that she sulkily left the tent and in a rather embarrassed way spent her affection on Jespah, rolling with him in the grass, biting and clasping him exactly as she had done Billy. Finally, the whole family gambolled off towards the rocks. I do not know who was more shaken – poor Billy or myself. All we could think was that this extraordinary reaction of Elsa to Billy was her way of accepting him into the family, for only to her cubs and to us had she ever shown her affection in this way. But we did not want to risk a repetition of her demonstrations towards our friend, so we decided to break his visit short and leave camp immediately after breakfast.

  After a few miles we saw two elephants some thirty yards off the road. They tested our scent with raised trunks, made a few undecided, swaying motions and moved away. Ibrahim then walked along the track to see if all was safe for we were handicapped in our driving by the heavily loaded trailer which made any quick reversing in an emergency impossible. His reconnoitre saved us from driving straight into a single bull elephant who had remained on the road. We gave him time to move away, but he took much longer than we needed to take photographs before he disappeared into the bush. After that we continued without further excitement, if one discounts two punctures which landed us in a ditch. About two hours before reaching Isiolo the car stopped with an abrupt jerk. The trailer had lost one wheel and jammed its axle into the ground. There was nothing to do but leave our escorting Game Scout in charge of the wreck and send the lorry to tow it home. When we finally arrived at Isiolo it was well past midnight.

  17. The Camp Is Burned

  At the beginning of June, after ten days’ absence, we returned to camp and, just before sunset, reached a place about six miles short of it. We saw that every tree and bush was loaded with birds of prey, and drove slowly towards them. Then suddenly we found ourselves surrounded by elephant who had closed in on us from every direction. It must have been the herd, numbering some thirty or forty head, which had been in the neighbourhood for the past weeks. They had a large number of very young calves with them whose worried mothers came close to the car with raised trunks and fanning ears, shaking their heads angrily at us. It was a tricky situation and it was not improved by the arrival of my truck, which, driven by Ibrahim, was following close behind us. George at once jumped on to the roof of the Land Rover and stood there, rifle in hand. We waited for what seemed an endless time, then some of the elephants started to cross the car track about twenty yards from us.

  It was a magnificent sight. The giants moved in single file, jerking their massive heads disapprovingly in our direction; to protect their young they kept them closely wedged between their bulky bodies.

  After making infuriated protests, most of the herd moved away, leaving small groups still undecided in the bush. We waited for them to follow and eventually all but two went off; these stood their ground and seemed to have no intention of budging.

  George wanted to see the kill which had attracted the birds and since the light was failing he decided to walk, with Makedde, between the two remaining groups of elephant. Meanwhile, Ibrahim and I stood on the roof of the car and kept a close watch on the beasts, so that we could warn George of their movements. He found a freshly killed waterbuck and lion spoor around it. Very little had been eaten, so plainly the lion had been interrupted by the arrival of the elephants.

  When he returned the light was failing rapidly and the elephants still blocked our way. We could not drive round them, so we decided to make a dash for it and drove both cars past them successfully.

  We wondered whether it might have been Elsa who had killed the waterbuck, but it was far from her usual hunting ground, and, besides, for her to tackle a beast with such formidable horns and heavier than herself (the buck must have weighed about 400 pounds), while protecting her cubs, would have been a very dangerous enterprise, and we felt sure she would not have done such a thing unless she was very hungry indeed.

  The day after our return to camp we saw Elsa and her cubs on the Big Rock. As soon as she spotted us she rushed down and ended by throwing the whole of her weight against George who was squashed by her affection, then she bowled me over, while the puzzled cubs craned their heads above the high grass to see what was going on.

  When we got back to camp we provided a meal for them over which they competed with such growls, snarls and spankings that we thought they must be very hungry. Little Elsa had the best of it and eventually went off with her loot, leaving her brothers still so hungry that we felt obliged to produce another carcase for them.

  Later, while we were resting, Jespah, with surprising boldness, started chewing at my sandals and poking at my toes. As his claws and teeth were already well developed I quickly tucked my feet under me. He seemed most disappointed, so I stretched my hand slowly towards him in a friendly gesture. He watched it attentively, then looked at me and walked off.

  That evening Elsa took up her usual position on the roof of the Land Rover, but the cubs instead of romping about flung themselves on the ground and never stirred. As it was the hour at which they were usually most energetic, we were surprised. During the night I heard Elsa talking to them in a low moan and also heard suckling noises. They must indeed have been hungry to need to be suckled after consuming two goats in twenty-four hours.

  In the morning they had gone. We followed their spoor and it led straight to the waterbuck kill. So it must have been Elsa who two days earlier after a long stalk had tackled this formidable beast. It was hard luck on her that the arrival of the elephants had prevented her and the cubs from having a good meal out of her kill.

  Now we understood why they had all been both so hungry and so exhausted when they came into camp.

  We collected the fine horns of the waterbuck and hung them in the studio, a proud record of the cubs’ first big hunt with their mother. They were now five and a half months old.

  One evening when Elsa and her cubs were walking back with us, she and Jespah got in front of us while Gopa and Little Elsa stayed behind. This worried Jespah very much; he rushed to and fro trying to marshal his pride, until his mother stood still, between us and him, and allowed us to pass her, thus reuniting the family. Afterwards she rubbed our knees affectionately as though to thank us for having taken the hint. That night a boiled guinea fowl disappeared from the kitchen. The cubs’ father was the thief for we found his spoor by the kitchen tent.

  The next morning I woke up to hear Elsa moaning to the cubs in a nearby thicket. Since their birth we had never used the wireless when they were in camp so as not to frighten them. But today George turned on the morning news. Elsa appeared at once, looked at the instrument, roared at it at full strength and went on doing so until we turned it off. Then she went back to the cubs. After a while George tuned in again, whereupon Elsa rushed back and repeated her roars until he switched off.

  I patted her and spoke reassuringly to her in a low voice, but she was not satisfied till she had made a thorough search inside the tent. Then she went to her family. I had often been asked how Elsa reacted to different sounds and had flattered myself that I knew how to answer these questions, but this reaction of hers was unexpected; before her release, when she was living with us, we had listened daily to the wireless, and though when we first tuned in she had always been startled, as indeed she usually was if I played the piano, as soon as she realized where the sounds came from she paid no attention to them. She differentiated between
the engine of a car and of a plane. However loud the noise of the plane might be she ignored it, but the faintest vibration from a car engine alerted her, often before we heard it. I had tried singing to her to test her reactions, but whatever the melody I never observed any response. On the other hand, when occasionally I imitated the cubs’ call in order to make her search for them she reacted at once as I intended she should, but if I did this for fun she paid no attention.

  As a wild animal she could of course recognize various animal sounds and interpret the mood of the approaching beast. She could also sense our mood by the intonation of our voices. I think I am right in saying that she preferred a low voice in human beings to a high-pitched one, even where shrillness was not due to agitation.

  *

  On 7 June we went back to Isiolo for nine days and on our return Elsa came into camp half an hour after we had fired a thunder-flash. The cubs were with her. She gave us a great welcome, but I noticed that she had wounds on her head and chin and a deep gash on her right ankle which was very swollen. This must have been painful for she was not keen on moving more than was necessary and she refused to let me dress her cuts. The whole family were very hungry and it took two goat carcases to satisfy them.

  Next morning we followed their spoor to see where they had laid up the night before we arrived. We knew it was on the far side of the river which she always preferred, though to us the two sides seemed identical. We were worried by her choice because we knew that the far bank was frequented by poachers and while, on her own, Elsa could not have been in any danger from them, with three cubs the situation was very different.

  We had chosen the area in which we had released her because on either side of the river tsetse flies were very active in a belt a few miles wide. The bite of this species of tsetse is harmless to man and to most wild animals, but fatal to livestock, so we had good hopes that no tempting goats would come within Elsa’s reach. She was very conservative in her habits, and though every two or three days she changed her lie-up she only moved around a very confined area, and this added to our reassurance.

  Lately we had had plenty of evidence that neighbouring tribesmen were trespassing, so we felt it would be a good thing if we could identify the lie-up she was now most frequently using as this might enable us to come to her help if an emergency arose. We followed her spoor, which led us from the river, along a dry watercourse to a rocky outcrop about half a mile away from the camp, to what we called the Cave Rock. This contained a fine rainproof cavity with several ‘platforms’, ideal resting places from which to survey the surrounding bush. Besides these amenities there were some suitable trees for the cubs to climb, growing nearby. This seemed to be Elsa’s present lie-up.

  When we got back to camp she and the cubs were waiting for us; she was nervous, but was very affectionate with me, allowing me to use her as a pillow; she also hugged me with her paws. Jespah, who had been watching us, apparently did not approve for after his mother had left he crouched and then started to charge me. He did this three times and though he swerved at the last moment, pretending to be more interested in elephant droppings, his flattened ears and angry snarls left me in no doubt about his jealousy. But it was significant that for his attack he chose a moment when his mother could not observe it. To placate him I gave him some titbits and then tied an inner tube to a ten-foot-long rope which I jerked about. While a tug-of-war was going on we suddenly heard the rumblings of elephant, which seemed to be having a game of their own in the studio.

  On 20 June the cubs were six months old; to celebrate their first half year George shot a guinea fowl. Little Elsa, of course, took possession of it and disappeared into the bush. Her indignant brothers went after her but returned defeated and tumbling down a sandy bank landed on their mother. She was lying on her back, her four paws straight up in the air. She caught the cubs and held their heads in her mouth. They struggled to free themselves and then pinched Mum’s tail. After a splendid game together, Elsa got up and walked up to me in a dignified manner and embraced me gently as though to show that I was not to be left out in the cold. Jespah looked bewildered. What could he make of this? Here was his mother making such a fuss of me, so I couldn’t be bad, but all the same I was so different from them. Whenever I turned my back on him, he stalked me, but each time I turned and faced him he stopped and rolled his head from side to side, as though he did not know what to do next. Then he seemed to find the solution: he would go off; he walked straight into the river evidently intending to cross to the other bank. Elsa rushed after him. I shouted, ‘No, no,’ but without effect and the rest of the family quickly followed them. Young as he was Jespah had now taken on the leadership of the pride and was accepted by the family.

  When they returned Elsa dozed off with her head on my lap. This was too much for Jespah. He crept up and began to scratch my shins with his sharp claws. I could not move my legs because of the weight of Elsa’s head resting on them, so in an effort to stop him I stretched my hand slowly towards him. In a flash he bit it and made a wound at the base of my forefinger. It was lucky that I always carry sulphanilamide powder with me so I was able to disinfect it at once. All this happened within a few inches of Elsa’s face but she diplomatically ignored the incident and closed her eyes sleepily.

  After this we all returned to camp and Jespah seemed so friendly that I began to wonder whether when he bit me it was only in play. Certainly, between himself and his mother, biting was a proof of affection.

  By now we were, however, beginning to worry about his relationship to us. We had done our best to respect the cubs’ natural instincts and not to do anything to prevent them from being wild lions, but inevitably this had resulted in our having no control over them. Little Elsa and her timid brother were as shy as ever and never provoked a situation which required chastisement. But Jespah had a very different character, and I could not push his sharp, scratching claws back by saying, ‘No, no,’ as I used to do when Elsa was a cub and so taught her to retract her claws when playing with us. On the other hand, I did not want to use a stick. Elsa might resent it if I did and indeed she might cease to trust me. Our only hope seemed to lie in establishing a friendly relationship with Jespah, but for the moment his variable reactions made a truce more possible than a friendship.

  After five days in camp we returned to Isiolo and, when we reached home, found that in a short time it was going to be necessary for George to go to the north for a three-week safari. We did not wish to desert Elsa for so long, and as in the absence of George and his Land Rover, I should not be left with enough transport to go backwards and forwards between Isiolo and the camp, I decided that I would spend these three weeks in the bush, even if it upset the cubs’ wild life.

  Before setting off I had two weeks by myself at Isiolo after which I planned to meet George in the first week of July at the camp. He would then be returning from patrol and on his way to Isiolo to get ready for the safari to the north.

  As I approached the camp I was worried because I did not see George and drove on filled with foreboding which was increased when, as I drew nearer, the air became so full of smoke that my lungs were stinging.

  When we arrived I could hardly believe my eyes. The thorn bushes were in ashes and smouldering tree trunks added to the grilling heat. The two acacia trees which provided shade and were the home of many birds were scorched. In the charred and blackened scene the green canvas of the tents stood out in sharp contrast. I was much relieved when I found George inside one of them eating his lunch.

  He had plenty to tell me. When he had arrived, two days earlier, he had found the camp burning and seen the footprints of twelve poachers. Not only had they set fire to the trees and the thorn enclosure but they had also destroyed everything they could find. They had even uprooted the little vegetable garden that Ibrahim had planted.

  George had been very worried about Elsa and had fired several thunderflashes between seven and ten p.m. without getting any response. Then at eleven she and th
e cubs had suddenly appeared, all ravenously hungry. Within two hours they had eaten an entire goat. Elsa had been most affectionate and had several times come to lie on George’s bed during the night: he noticed that she had several wounds. She left at dawn; soon afterwards he followed her spoor and eventually saw her sitting on the Whuffing Rock.

  Then he went off to try and discover where she had come from on the previous evening. Her spoor which led down from the river was mixed up with the footprints of the poachers. He wondered whether they had been hunting Elsa and the cubs.

  After lunch he sent three Game Scouts to search for the camp burners. They returned with six of the culprits. He kept them busy rebuilding the camp, which was no agreeable task, considering the amount of thorny bush which they were obliged to cut for our enclosures.

  Elsa and her cubs who had spent the night in camp left soon after daybreak. Half an hour later George heard roars coming from the direction of the Big Rock, which was the way they had gone, so he assumed it must be Elsa; he was therefore much astonished to hear her voice coming from across the river soon afterwards. Then she appeared wet and without the cubs and seemed very agitated: she had several bleeding marks on her hindquarters.

  In a few minutes she left hurriedly, rushing towards the Big Rock calling loudly. George felt sure that she must recently have had an encounter with an enemy for her wounds were not made by a quarry; also, her nervous state suggested that she knew that whatever beast had threatened her was still in the neighbourhood. George now thought that the roars he had first taken for Elsa’s were probably those of some fierce lion who had attacked her and that while the two were fighting the cubs had scattered and after the battle Elsa had escaped across the river. Now he followed Elsa in search of her family. Together they climbed up the Big Rock. When they got to its top Elsa called in a very worried tone of voice.