Standing on her hind legs, Elsa inspected my paintbox and typewriter suspiciously; and resting both her front paws on the unfortunate tools, she licked my face and wanted to be assured of my affection before I was allowed to start work. Then she settled down at my feet and I began, full of inspiration; but I had not reckoned with our audience. As soon as I tried to concentrate I heard the inquiring bark of a baboon peeping through the foliage; then the bush on the opposite bank became alive with inquisitive watching faces. Soon, intrigued by Elsa, they came more and more into the open, swinging recklessly from tree to tree, screaming and barking, sliding backwards down the trunks or hopping and swaying like shadows in the treetops, until one little chap fell with a splash into the river. At once, an old baboon came to its rescue, and clutching the wet, struggling creature, raced off with it to safety. At this, all the baboons in the world seemed to have got loose and the screeching was deafening. Elsa, who could tolerate the noise no longer, plunged into the river and swam across, accompanied by the hilarious shrieks of the baboons. As soon as she had reached firm ground she jumped at the nearest of the little tormentors. He swung tantalizingly low but nimbly avoided a spanking by hopping to a higher branch, from which place of safety he pulled faces and shook the branch at Elsa. The others joined in the game, and the more infuriated Elsa became, the more they enjoyed teasing her – they sat just out of her reach, scratching their posteriors, pretending to be utterly unaware of the raging lioness just below. The scene was so funny that in spite of Elsa’s humiliation I opened my ciné camera and filmed it. This was too much for her; as soon as she saw me focusing the hated box on her, she splashed back through the river and, before I had time to secure the camera, she leapt on me and we both rolled over in the sand with the precious Bolex. Everything was wet; the baboons applauded our performance enthusiastically, and I fear that in the eyes of our audience both Elsa and I lost face very considerably.
After this the baboons looked every day for Elsa, and both sides got to know each other very well. As she tolerated their provocations and took to ignoring them, they grew bolder and bolder. Often they squatted for their daily drinks at the edge of the rapids, separated by only a few yards of water from her. One would keep sentry duty while the others sat on their haunches and, bending low, slowly drank their fill.
They were not the only cheeky small animals who annoyed Elsa. For instance, once when we had brought back a buck a bush monitor appeared. These harmless large lizards, which are about three to five feet long and four to six inches wide, have forked tongues, they live in rivers and eat fish, but also enjoy meat. A superstition is that they give warning of the approach of crocodiles; in fact, they do eat the eggs of crocodiles and so act as one of nature’s controls. Now, this one endeavoured to snatch a few bites from Elsa’s meal. She tried to catch him, but he was much too quick for her. So she covered the kill safely out of his reach, and thus prevented him from stealing another scrap of her carcase. This behaviour was in contrast to her attitude towards us. She liked me to hold her food for her while she ate it and would allow George and Nuru to handle her ‘kill’. We were her ‘pride’ and she was quite prepared to share everything with us, but she had no intention of sharing with a monitor. In fact, she also differentiated between myself, George, Nuru and the rest of our staff; she would, for instance, allow any of us to take her meat out of the tent, but she did not allow the boys or the cook to do so.
Our idyll would have been perfect if Elsa had not been a carnivore which had to be trained to kill. Our next victim was a gerenuk. After Elsa had done her share in the killing we left her, some miles away from our camp, in charge of the carcase. On our way home we saw a lion walking in her direction. Had he already scented the kill? When, in the afternoon, we went to visit Elsa, she as well as the kill had gone, but plenty of big lion spoor told us what had happened. We followed her pugmarks for over two miles; they led towards her favourite rock, on which, with our field glasses, we eventually detected her. She had been clever enough to choose the only spot where she felt strategically safe from lion and could also be seen by us from a distance.
One night we were awakened by snorts and commotion coming from the direction of the salt lick. Before we were properly awake, Elsa rushed out of the tent to protect her ‘den’. There followed more snorts and commotions, which gradually faded away. Evidently Elsa had done her stuff; soon she returned panting, flung herself down next to George’s bed and, putting one paw on him, seemed to say, ‘Now all is safe again. It was only a rhino.’
She did the same thing a few nights later with a herd of elephant. Their startled screams coming from behind the camp were enough to send her into action, and fortunately she succeeded in chasing the giants away. Their trumpeting was terrifying. I am always scared of elephant – they are the only big game which really do frighten me. Now I could not help thinking how easily the situation might have been reversed. The elephants might have chased Elsa, and she would of course have come back to us for protection. George laughed at my fears, but I felt far from confident in always trusting to luck.
Every day a buffalo approached our camp until one morning he became a victim: George shot him. Although he was dead long before Elsa arrived, she went wild with excitement – indeed, she got far more worked up over this carcase than we had ever seen her before at a kill. She pounced madly on the dead buffalo, attacking from every side and turning somersaults across the body. But however uncontrolled her movements seemed to be, she took good care to keep out of reach of the deadly horns. Finally she tapped the buffalo on the nose with her paw to make sure that he was dead.
George’s main purpose in shooting such a big beast had been to attract wild lion to the kill. We hoped that if they came, Elsa could join in the feast and make friends with them. In order to control whatever might happen, we decided to drag the carcase close to the camp and then leave Elsa in charge of it. Meanwhile we went off to fetch the car. When we returned the trees around were weighed down with vultures and marabou storks, but Elsa was keeping them at bay, sitting out in the hot sun next to her kill. She was plainly much relieved when we, her ‘pride’, took over and made it possible for her to retire to a shady bush. But as soon as the boys started to cut open the inch-thick skin of the buffalo, she could not resist it and rushed up to join in. While they were slicing open the stomach, she helped, tore out guts between the busy knives, and chewed them with delight under the very hands of the butchering boys. She sucked the intestines into her mouth like spaghetti, at the same time pressing with her teeth so that the unwanted contents were ejected like toothpaste from a tube. Good-naturedly she watched the carcase being fastened to a chain and attached to the car. Then while the poor Land Rover jerked across uneven ground towing the heavy buffalo, she rode – as usual – on the canvas roof, adding another 300 lb to the load.
After the kill had been secured with a chain to a tree close to camp, Elsa guarded it jealously during the whole of the following day and night. Judging by the never-ending chorus of high-pitched chuckles from hyena, she was kept very busy after dark but next morning when we returned she was still protecting the carcase. Only then did she leave it, making it very plain that it was now our turn to be on guard while she trotted away to the river. We covered the kill with thorns as a protection from vultures and so saved it for another night’s ‘defence’ lesson.
Elsa joined us on our usual afternoon’s walk, her swaying belly full of buffalo meat. After a short time through the bush she spotted a hyena making its way slowly towards the kill. Immediately she froze, her left front paw suspended in the air. Then, with the utmost caution, she lowered herself to a crouching position, blending among the straw-coloured grass till she was almost invisible. Tense with controlled excitement, she watched the hyena hobbling peacefully along, quite unaware that it had an audience. When it came to within a few yards, Elsa rushed forward and gave it a well-aimed smack. With a yell the animal rolled over and lay on its back emitting howls and londrawn moans.
Elsa looked at us, and jerked her head in her characteristic way towards her victim, as though saying: ‘What shall we do next?’ As she did not get any encouragement from us, she started licking her paws and appeared utterly bored by the miserable creature in front of her. Gradually the hyena pulled itself together and eventually, still whining protests, sneaked away.
Elsa’s trust in us was shown on other occasions.
Late one afternoon we had left her in charge of a buck which she and George had killed a long distance from the camp. Knowing that she would not remain with it alone during the night so far away from us, we collected a car to bring it nearer to camp. But on our return, Elsa and the kill had gone. Soon, however, she appeared through the bush and led us to the hideout to which she had dragged it during our absence. Although she was very pleased to see us, she would not allow us to pull the kill to the car, and all the tricks I tried to make her leave it failed: she was not going to be fooled. Finally we manoeuvred the car in front of the carcase, and I pointed first to the car and then to the buck, then to the car and again to the buck, trying to make her see that we wanted to help her. She must have understood, for suddenly she got up, rubbed her head against my knees and pulled her kill from under the thornbush towards the car. Finally she tried to lift it by the head into the Land Rover; soon realizing that she could not do this from outside, she then leapt into the car, and from there, gripping the head, pulled with all her strength while we lifted the hindquarters. When the buck was safely inside, Elsa sat on it panting, while George drove on. However, she found that bumping through the bush was not at all comfortable in her cramped position, so she jumped out again and on to the roof, bending her head frequently to see if all was well inside and the kill still there.
When we arrived at the camp we had to face the problem of getting the buck out of the car, but now Elsa treated us as her allies and let us do most of the pulling. Everyone was helping except myself, so Elsa walked up to me and gave me an encouraging spank, as though to say, ‘What about you helping too?’
Although we had left the kill fairly near the camp, we soon heard her dragging it along with the intention, no doubt, of bringing it inside our tent. We quickly closed the thorn fence, locking her out with her smelly buck. Poor Elsa, it was much safer inside the tent; now she would have to spend the whole night protecting it. The best thing she could do was to place it against the outside of the thorn fence and this she did. As a result, the hyenas came so close and made so much noise that sleep was impossible. Finally Elsa must have got tired of chasing the creatures away, for we heard her dragging the buck towards the river and then splashing through the water with it. This defeated the hyenas and they left. Did she know that they would not follow her through water?
Next morning we found her spoor and the marks left by dragging the kill. They led across the river but then, it seemed, she had not wanted to be separated from us and so she had dragged it back to our side. Here she had placed it in impenetrable bush, right at the water’s edge, so that no animal could get at it unless they approached from the river. We now found her resting with the buck, and she made it obvious that she was very much hurt that we had locked her out; it took us a long time to win back her confidence and to be forgiven.
Although Elsa had no mother to teach her, she knew by instinct how far she could go with wild animals. Many times on our walks through the bush we watched her, sniffing the air and then stalking determinedly in one direction until we heard the crashing of big bodies breaking through the woods. On several occasions she detected rhino and chased them away from us; in fact she was an excellent watchdog.
Several herds of buffalo had made their home on a nearby ridge and Elsa never missed an opportunity of stirring these heavy animals into commotion. More than once she surprised them fast asleep, dodged round them, hopping nimbly out of range of their horns, and she always stood her ground until the buffaloes departed.
One morning we walked in a dry river bed and read the ‘news’ about last night’s visitors in the sand. Two lion and plenty of elephant were of major importance. The sun was getting hot and we were all tired after a three-hour walk. The wind was against us and, coming carelessly round a bend, we nearly collided with a herd of elephant. Luckily Elsa was trotting a short distance behind us, so we had time to jump on to the high bank, while the elephants climbed up the other side and took three tiny calves into safety, and one old bull kept in the rear, ready to charge should there be any nonsense. Elsa came sleepily along, then, seeing the bull, sat down. We watched, wondering what would happen. Both sides looked at each other for what seemed to us an endless time. Finally, it was the elephant who gave in and joined his herd, while Elsa rolled on her back, getting rid of some tsetse flies.
On our way home George shot a waterbuck which was standing in the river. Badly hit, it dashed across to the opposite side, followed by Elsa who splashed unbelievably fast through the deep water. When we arrived at the other bank we found her amongst the river bush, panting, on top of the dead buck. She was very excited and did not allow us to touch her kill. So we decided to return home and leave her to guard it. As soon as we started wading back through the water, she began to follow us, but seemed torn between conflicting impulses: she did not want to be left on the wrong side of the river with her kill, on the other hand she did not want to lose it. Eventually she returned reluctantly to it, but soon made another attempt to cross, only to turn back again but undecidedly. However, by the time we had reached the opposite bank Elsa had made up her mind.
Now we saw her dragging the buck into the water. What was she up to? Surely she could not bring this heavy animal across alone? But Elsa was not going to be defeated. She held the carcase in her mouth and swam with it through the deep water, her head often submerged to get a better grip. She hauled and tugged, pushed and pulled, and when the buck got stuck, pounced on it to get it floating again. Often both disappeared from view and only Elsa’s tail or one leg of the buck told us of the struggle that was going on at the bottom of the river. We watched fascinated. After half an hour of strenuous effort, she trailed her quarry proudly through the shallow water near to us. By now she was really exhausted, but her task was not finished yet. After tugging the buck into a little sheltered bay where the current could not carry it away, she looked for a safe hiding place. The bank here was a solid network of sharp-edged, thorn-hooked doum-palm seedlings, which overhung the steep walls that lined the river; even Elsa could not penetrate this thicket.
We left her with her kill and went back to camp to collect some bush knives and ropes and to have our overdue breakfast. When we returned, we cut a passage through the doum-palm undergrowth to the water’s edge and, while Elsa watched the men suspiciously, I slipped a rope noose over the buck’s head. Now all was ready to haul it up the steep bank. At the first tug Elsa growled and flattened her ears warningly – obviously she thought that her kill was going to be taken away from her. But as soon as she saw me join in the pulling, she relaxed, and climbed up the bank. Our combined efforts landed the buck ten feet above the river where the boys had cut a well-protected shady shelter for Elsa and her kill. Now she realized what we had done for her and it was touching to see her going from one to another of us, rubbing her head and thanking everyone in turn with a low moan.
On two occasions I watched her walk unconcernedly through a broad stream of black soldier ants, scattering their organized columns in all directions with her large paws. Although these fierce ants usually bite at anything which disturbs their migration, for some reason they did not take their revenge on Elsa.
One day we were very tired and I was walking along absentmindedly behind Elsa. Suddenly she gave a terrific grunt, reared up on her hind legs and leaped back. We were passing a tree which forked about five feet above the ground and now coiled up in it I saw a red cobra, erecting its hood towards us. Thanks to Elsa, nothing happened, but to pass a cobra at such close range might have been serious. It was the first time I had seen one in a tre
e. Even Elsa was impressed, and during the next few days she made a careful detour whenever we came near to that tree.
At this time it was very hot and Elsa spent much of her time in the river. Often she stood half-submerged in the cool water; although we often saw crocodiles, they never seemed to worry her. Whenever George shot a guinea fowl near the river, Elsa retrieved it from the water and used its rescue as an excuse for prolonged splashings with the bird in her mouth; she enjoyed the game just as much as we loved watching her.
She had now completely recovered and was perfectly fit. She was very conservative in her habits and except for slight variations our routine was the same every day: an early morning walk, followed by her midday slumber close to me by our tree on the river bank. This lasted until teatime, then came our afternoon stroll. On our return she found her meal waiting for her; she usually carried it on to the roof of the Land Rover, where she remained until the lights were put out and everybody went to bed. Then she joined George in his tent, sleeping next to his bed on the ground, a paw always in touch with him.
One afternoon Elsa refused to come for a walk. When we returned after dark she had disappeared and did not return until early next morning. Later we found large lion pugmarks close to camp, and when she came back I again noticed the peculiar smell which was typical of her being in season. Her manners were another indication of this condition. Although she was very friendly, the real affection was missing. Soon after breakfast she was off again and kept away all day. After dark we heard her hopping on to the Land Rover and I went out at once to play with her. But she was aloof and very restless, jumped down, and vanished into the dark. During the night I heard her splashing in the river, to the accompaniment of agitated noises coming from alarmed baboons; this lasted until early morning. Then Elsa returned for a quick visit to the camp, tolerated George’s pattings, purred at him and went off again. It was obvious that she was in love.