06 African Adventure (3 page)

Joro answered sullenly, ‘I didn’t hear you.’

‘Where were you all night?’

‘Here, of course.’

‘But they say you were not in the camp.’

‘They are mistaken. I was in my tent, asleep.’

‘But I saw you come out of the brush just a few minutes ago.’

‘Yes, bwana. I went out early to look for you.’

Hunt saw that this line of questioning was getting nowhere.

‘Joro,’ he said, ‘what do you know about the Leopard Society?’

That question went home. Joro was visibly shaken. His voice was unsteady as he replied, ‘I know nothing of it, bwana.’

It was plain that he was deeply disturbed. Hunt was sorry for him. He could not answer this man’s hate with hate, for he was not a hating man. He realized that Joro was somehow in the grip of terrible forces and the good and bad in him were struggling against each other. Here was a man to be pitied and helped, not feared or fought. Joro, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other, said, ‘May I go now?’

‘Joro,’ said Hunt kindly, ‘you are in trouble. You don’t want to tell me what it is. That’s quite all right. But remember, in this camp you are among friends. If you ever need us, all you have to do is ask.’

‘I won’t need you,’ Joro said with a sudden flash of anger, and left the tent.

Hunt went out into the morning sunshine and breathed deeply. The air was sweet with the scent of dew on the grass and all the better for the fragrance of bacon and eggs cooking over the open fire. Hal and Roger joined him. Together they looked at the miracle that is fresh every morning in the African big-game country.

In the low rays of the just-risen sun the animals were coming down to the river to drink.

Animals, animals, animals, of every shape and form, animals by the hundred, by the thousand, were on the move.

‘I never dreamed it would be like this,’ Hal said.

‘No one can believe it until he actually sees it,’ said Hunt. ‘Every time I come to Africa it strikes me as hard as it did at first. You often read nowadays that wild life is disappearing, and it’s true in a way - but you can see that there’s a lot of it left.’

‘Looks as if all the zoos in the world had just been let loose,’ said Roger, as he made a complete turn-about, his eyes sweeping over a sea of bobbing heads, every head containing the same thought - breakfast-Nibbling at shrubs or high grass as they went, or seizing smaller animals if they were meat-eaters, they ambled down towards the river. On the other side of the river, too, they could be seen coming down from the hills to meet at the river’s bank.

Hunt pointed out those that passed close to the camp, and named them. The big eland was cram-full of dignity and majesty. The graceful, streamlined impala was full of fun, jumping six feet high over bushes instead of troubling to go round them. The ungainly wildebeest (in crossword puzzles it is called the gnu) flounced about awkwardly like a fat old lady trying to do the twist. The little duiker (which means diver, because he dives through brush) did not go round bushes like the stately eland, nor leap over them like the impala, but plunged straight through.

And still they came - zebras frisking like horses, long-faced hartebeest, springing klipspringers, dik-diks almost small enough to put in your pocket, waterbuck, bush-buck, kob, oryx, and those lovely gazelles which they would see all over East Africa, the Grants and the Tommies.

A giraffe went by, his long neck angling into the sky like a derrick. He paused to pick some tender young leaves from the top of a tree. Then he went on to the river. How would he get that high head of his down to the water?

The giraffe lowered his head, but even when it was as far down as he could get it, it was still several feet above the surface. He knew by instinct how to solve that problem. He spread his front feet wide apart so that his body slanted down from tail to neck like the roof of a house. Then his lowered head easily reached the water. Every gulp ran up his neck in a bulge as big as a cricket ball.

‘Lions!’ exclaimed Roger. Two big, tawny beasts with heavy manes, who looked as if they belonged in Trafalgar Square, walked along with heads down.

What seemed strange to Roger was that gazelles and waterbuck a few feet away from the lions paid no attention to them.

‘Why aren’t they afraid?’ asked Roger. ‘I thought all animals were afraid of lions.’

‘See those sagging bellies?’ Hunt said. ‘The lions have eaten during the night. They are full and satisfied, and the antelopes know it. So why should they be afraid?’

One of the lions let out a sudden roar that seemed to shake the ground. Roger expected to see him spring upon one of the passing animals. Surely his father must be wrong; a roar like that must mean business. But the animals still gave no heed to the King of Beasts. Hunt saw the bewildered look on his son’s face.

‘A lion roars after he has had his dinner,’ Hunt said. ‘Perhaps it’s his way of saying thank you. It means he is satisfied, content with himself and with the world. If you hear a lion roar during the night, you don’t need to be scared. It’s the lion that doesn’t roar that you need to be afraid of. When a lion is hungry he creeps up on his victim without making a sound.’

Until now all the animals had politely gone round the camp, not through it. But suddenly two huge black objects that seemed as big as locomotives came blundering straight into the camp ground. They squashed one of the tents, and two Africans popped out of it squealing with terror.

The two monsters went straight on through the camp-fire, kicking pots and pans in all directions and spattering eggs, bacon, and coffee over themselves and the astonished cook. Out they went on the other side and down through the bushes to the river. A troop of terrified baboons fled out of their path and went galumphing into the woods where the leopard and her cubs had been found the night before.

It is easy to scare an African, but after the danger is over he just as easily laughs. And now the whole camp rang with laughter over the confusion that had been caused by the two living locomotives.

As they cackled and giggled, they went to work putting up the badly battered tent, and the cook collected his

kitchenware, raked together the scattered embers of his fire, and started all over again to prepare breakfast. But everyone kept a sharp eye out for more rhinos.

‘Why did they barge through the camp?’ Hal wondered.

They probably didn’t even realize there was a camp,’ Hunt said. ‘Rhinos are just about the stupidest animals in Africa. They have very poor eyesight. Those two brutes probably didn’t see the tents or the fire. They simply knew there was a river down below, and nothing was going to stop them from getting to it.’

A plaintive mew came from the cage of the baby leopards. The dog had been let out earlier to take her morning run. Now she was back, looking into the cage and whining softly. The two cubs stood on their hind feet, with forefeet clawing the wire screen as they looked out at her and mewed.

‘How about breakfast for the cubs?’ said Roger.

‘That’s a bit of a problem,’ his father said. ‘They need their mother’s milk, but since she is dead we’ll have to mix up some powdered milk. Then we’ll warm it a little over the fire.’

This was easily done. But it was not so easy to work out how to get the warm milk into the cubs. Some was poured into a dish and placed inside the cage. The cubs smelt it eagerly but evidently had no idea of how to lap it up.

‘What we need is a couple of feeding-bottles with rubber nipples that they can suck, just as they have been used to feeding from their mother. But I’m afraid we won’t find anything like that in camp.’

‘Can’t we spoon-feed them?’ said Roger.

‘We’ll try it.’

Roger opened the cage and drew out one of the cubs. It wriggled and snarled, but did not try to bite or extend its claws. Roger held it firmly while his father placed his hand beneath the jaw, and pressed his thumb into one cheek and fingers into the other. That would open a cat’s jaws, or a dog’s. But the leopard’s jaws were too strong and remained tightly closed.

Now Hal got into the act. While Roger held the animal and his father poised the spoon, Hal took hold of the upper and lower jaws, confident that he could pull them apart.

They would not budge. All the strength of the small animal seemed to be concentrated in those jaws.

Suddenly it wrenched its head about and sent the milk flying. Milk dripped from the little whiskers, but the jaws were still clamped shut.

Hal laughed. ‘Funny thing, when three big men can’t make one small cat take its breakfast.’

Zulu was nuzzling the ball of golden brown fur with her nose and whimpering softly.

‘What’s the matter, Zu?’ said Roger. ‘What are yon trying to say?’

Hunt studied the dog. ‘I think I know,’ he said. He called Mali, the dog’s owner. ‘Mali, didn’t you say that Zu has just had pups?’

‘It is so, bwana.’

‘Then perhaps she’s still in milk. She seems to have adopted these little rascals. Perhaps she wants to feed them. Put the cub back into the cage. Roger, and let’s see what happens. Leave the door open.’

Zu, with a little bark, followed the cub into the cage, put one and then the other into the basket, got in herself, and lay down.

But nothing happened. The small animals turned away from the dog. One of them began to climb out of the basket.

‘They need a little coaching,’ Hunt said.’

He went into the cage on his knees, took both cats by the nape of the neck, turned them about, and pressed their noses close to the food supply that was waiting for them. The cubs tried to wriggle out of his grip. When they found they could not, they relaxed. Their sense of smell gradually won them over to this unfamiliar foster-mother and they began to lick, then to suckle greedily.

Hunt could now let go and crawl out of the cage, and the cubs’ breakfast continued with many little gurgling sounds of satisfaction. Roger was about to close the cage door, but his father said, ‘I don’t think you need to. Now that they know where they can find their dinner, they won’t run away.’

When their meal was finished, the two cubs stretched themselves out contentedly and purred like organs. The dog began to lick their woolly hides.

‘Getting their morning bath,’ Roger said.

‘It looks like that,’ Hunt replied. ‘Actually what it does is to massage the muscles and aid digestion. Many animal mothers do it by instinct, without knowing why -dogs, leopards, lions, antelopes, and others.’

Roger admired his two pets - he considered them his. Their fur was like dark gold. They didn’t look much like leopards. The circles and spots that mark the grown-up leopard were as yet only soft blurs - they would appear more plainly as the animals grew older. The whiskers, still short, would become long and bristly. The greenish-yellow eyes were fierce, but not so fierce as they would be. The teeth and jaws were already bigger than a grown man’s. But the way each little cat staggered around on awkward paws showed that it was still very much of a baby.

‘Can we keep them until they grow up?’ Roger asked.

‘No. They will have to go to a zoo where they can be cared for properly. Grown leopards don’t make good pets.’

‘Why not? These little fellows aren’t bad-tempered. They haven’t put their claws out once. And a leopard doesn’t grow very large - like a lion.’

‘But they don’t keep that sweet disposition when they get older,’ Hunt said. ‘No matter how kindly they are treated, they finally turn savage. A lion or an elephant can be your friend for life - but not a leopard. Something in their nature makes them suspect and hate everything else that moves. And the leopard is very strong. Zoologists say that it is the strongest animal for its size on earth. A leopard is a wonderful climber. It can run up a tree as fast as you can run on the level. When it kills an animal, it drags the body up a tree and puts it in the cleft of a high branch so that lions and hyenas can’t get at it. Many times game wardens have reported seeing a leopard shinny up a tree dragging a waterbuck or a zebra three times as heavy as itself. Sounds impossible, but they’ve proved it by shooting the leopard and weighing the carcasses. And a leopard is more bold than other animals. Ask the villagers. They are more afraid of the leopard than of anything else. A lion won’t come into a house, and an elephant can’t - but a leopard thinks nothing of creeping in through a door or window and seizing the first living thing it finds.’

‘Then why don’t the game scouts go out and kill all the leopards?’

‘A good question,’ his father agreed. ‘The answer is that in the scheme of nature the leopard has its place. For one thing, it keeps down the baboons. The leopard is very fond of baboon meat. If it weren’t for leopards, there would soon be such vast numbers of baboons that every farmer’s field would be stripped clean of every growing thing, and troops of baboons would become so bold that they would make raids upon village people and kill hundreds of them. That very thing has happened in parts of the country where there were no leopards.’

Roger swatted a tsetse fly that had lit on his hand. He looked at his father with mischief in his eyes.

‘Well Dad, if everything is good for something, tell me what’s good about a tsetse?’

Hunt grinned. ‘You think you’ve got me there, you young rascal. All right, I’ll tell you what’s good about a tsetse. First I’ll admit it’s the most dangerous fly in the world, because its bite can give you sleeping sickness. That can happen, but usually doesn’t - most tsetse bites are harmless. But the good thing about this bad fly is that without it you wouldn’t be looking now at thousands of wild animals. They just wouldn’t be here.’

‘How’s that?’

‘I remember once I was making a trip through the Tsavo game reserve with the warden and I swatted a tsetse. He said to me, ‘Don’t kill the tsetse. It’s our best friend. Without the tsetse we wouldn’t have any game park.’ I understood what he meant. The Africans raise millions of cattle and the cattle roam all over the land eating the grass right down to the roots, so that there is nothing left for the wild animals. But there is one place where the cattle can’t go. They can’t go into any area inhabited by tsetse flies, because the tsetse bite is deadly to cattle. So those parts of the country are left for the wild animals to enjoy.’