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Kampi ya Simba from the air
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Excerpt from Gareth's Where the Lion Walked
That morning we organized ourselves for the trip to Kora. We hired a
Suzuki four-wheel drive and bought supplies for the next few days. The
Kora Reserve where George Adamson lived is part of an isolated chunk of
north-eastern Kenya. Knowing that his camp was a five-hour drive from
the nearest stores, we stocked up with fresh vegetables, fruit and drinks--all
uncommon and greatly appreciated commodities at the remote Kampi ya Simba.
In our minds, although we did not talk about it, Jane and I knew that
our trip to George Adamson was to be the completion of the six-month African
adventure, a journey we had shared and, through our experiences and findings,
had developed within ourselves a whirlpool of emotion eagerly waiting
to be released. The final chapter of what was to prove a major influence
in our lives was about to be lived.
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... The site of these hives as we
approached the home of George Adamson reminded me of a story recounted in
his book Bwana Game about honey gatherers and the fate dealt out
to honey poachers. Many years ago while on patrol, George's game scouts
had arrested a frail old Dorobo tribesman. The man was unarmed and clothed
only in an old antelope skin. The first thing George noticed was that the
man's hands were horribly and apparently permanently screwed up like the
claws of a dead bird. It transpired that many years before the man had been
an infamous honey thief. He had been caught by tribesmen and according to
Dorobo custom was cruelly punished: his hands were tightly knotted and then
tied back on to his arms with bow string sinew. The honey poacher had then
been released into the wilderness, permanently prevented from ever again
stealing honey. Since that time--some thirty years before--he had been wandering
throught the bush. He was partly insane but somehow had managed to survive
by eating the remains of lion and leopard kills and by grubbing for roots
and fruits with his mangled hands.
...Gradually we approached the top of a rise and from this elevated position
we had a panoromic view of the Kora Reserve. In the distance I could see
the area's prominent landmark, Kora Rock, under which George Adamson's camp
nestles. As we descended towards the camp, I reflected on how this visit
to George Adamson represented a completion of a cycle. |
With George, on the banks of the Tana River
(Jane Hunter)
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With George Adamson in the mess hut (Jane Hunter)
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As a child in Africa I had been inspired by the
Adamsons. I had grown up with the Born Free series of books and remember
avidly reading George Adamson's Bwana Game at the age of twelve.
When I was seventeen years old, I had written to George Adamson from the
cold confines of a classroom in southeast England where I had, reluctantly,
undergone two years of British education after an idyllic (though perhaps
not very academic) childhood in Nigeria and Malawi. With my schooling in
Britain nearing completion, I was determined to return to my home, Africa,
and to live in the bush. I had written to offer George my untrained services--untrained
in an academic sense as I had within me a strong love and empathy for wild
animals. George had evidently passed the letter on to Joy Adamson who at
that time was looking for an assistant for her leopard project at Shaba.
I was in Malawi on holiday from school when I received the reply from Joy.
The letter had taken time to reach me as it had been mailed to Britain and
then sent to Malawi. I remembered the thrill and excitement of receiving
the letter. Joy had outlined what the job entailed and had made a tentative
offer of employment, subject to my obtaining a work permit for Kenya. |
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My happiness on reading the letter was immense: I felt that at last I
would be released from the cold grey days of Britain, a life to which
I had had much trouble adapting after my unrestrained childhood in Africa.
Two weeks after receiving the letter I flew back to Britain to complete
my final examinations. When I arrived in London I bought a newspaper and
was shocked to read the headline--Joy had been killed. She had written
to me exactly one month before her death. I was terribly saddened and
shocked in many senses. Her life in Kenya, the story of Elsa, the story
of Pippa, were all companions to me--they and all that Joy Adamson had
represented had been crushed by cruel murder.
But destiny works in strange ways. Now eight years later, I was to meet
George Adamson, a meeting which was the product of my determination to
return to Africa to work with its wildlife, and my strong empathy with
the subject close to Joy and George's heart--the African lion. The spirit
of this animal had given rise to my concern for its plight in today's
Africa and had resulted in my journey to the varied areas where the lion
is still found; finally it was taking me to meet a man who for so long
has represented the need for the recognition and freedom of this great
cat. Joy's death was tragic but the tragedy had been strangely instrumental
in my eventual quest.
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With one of Growe's youngsters (Carla)
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George bottle-feeds two cubs at Kora, December 1988
(Jane Hunter)
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The cycle was now about to be completed as we drove up to the lonely
dwelling at Kampi ya Simba. The staff opened the gate in the tall lion-proofed
fence and at that moment Jane and I knew that we had reached the beginning
of the final chapter of our travels. We met George as we walked into the
mess hut. He greeted us with sparkling eyes, one hand out-thrust, the
other holding his pipe. We introduced ourselves, and George in turn introduced
us to Margot Henke, a charming lady who was also staying at the camp.
Although eighty-two years old at the time and the recipient of hundreds
of letters from all over the world, George remembered my writings of the
Tuli lions and my book Cry for the Lions. At that first meeting
I remember thinking that George epitomised my vision of the man who had
been described as the Father of the Lion. His shock of yellow-white hair
hung, mane-like, to his shoulders; he was dressed only in shorts and sandals;
and his skin was creased and browned by the years he had spent under the
relentless African sun.
George invited us to have tea and rest after our eight-hour long journey.
Later, Margot showed us where we were to sleep and we unloaded the provisions
from the vehicle and handed them over to George's ancient Sudanese cook,
Hamissi. That evening, as the sun dropped behind the camp, we moved to
the table and chairs that faced the Kora Rock. We were joined by Margot,
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| who we discovered, had for many years looked
after Joy's mail in America. Today she visits George as often as possible,
staying for a few weeks at a time and helping him in camp. It had been an
eventful but frustrating day for both George and Margot. George's assistant,
Georgina Edmonds, had been due to return from Nairobi by road that afternoon.
When she had not arrived by sundown George had become increasingly concerned.
Just a week earlier shifta (Somali bandits) had clashed with game rangers
and one of the rangers had been seriously injured during the shoot-out.
It is a dangerous region, especially for a girl driving alone. Fortunately
news of Georgina eventually came throught the radio telephone. Her vehicle
had broken down just as she was about to leave Nairobi, but she hoped to
reach Kora by the following afternoon. Both Margot and George were visibly
relieved on hearing the news that she was safe. |
Rafiki--one of the orphaned cubs in George's care
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Playing with Batian (Julie Marshall)
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As we all relaxed after hearing the news, it
was mentioned that our arrival at Kora had coincided with the first day
that George's lions had been seen at the camp for more than two and a half
months. They had mysteriously appeared before the first light of morning.
Instinctively, George had woken up to the sound of the lions lapping water
from the trough outside the camp. Despite the long absence, the twelve-year-old
lioness Growe had still accepted food from him. But with the dawn the six
lions had disappeared into the surrounding bush as suddenly as they had
arrived. That night, as we sat over our drinks, we could sense the emotion
George felt as a result of the arrival of the lions that morning. He later
fetched his loud-hailer from his hut and walked unarmed through the gate
in the fence into the inky blackness. In the darkness he called his lions
"Growe, come on, Growe." In an almost leonine way his voice boomed
and resounded off the Kora Rock and its sister outcrop. But the lions did
not appear, possibly because they were busy on a nearby kill. |
| That night after dinner in the mess hut George
and I talked for many hours. The conversation revolved around our common
love, the lion. Having many of the stories recounted in George's book at
first hand, from the man himself, brought to life an era which seems to
have passed by so quickly. George's life has been a series of adventures,
a life of excitement and danger, but above all it has been a life inextricably
bound to that of the lion. Since that fateful year of 1956 when George shot
the lioness whose single offspring became the famous Elsa, he has devoted
himself to his lions. Since Elsa's death he has reared and released int
the wilds more than thirty lions--releasing them from a life of captivity
and enabling them to achieve what lions should not be denied: their freedom.
I went to bed that night with a feeling of complete fulfilment, now that
I had reached Kora and met George. |
Furaha, with her brother Batian and her sister Rafiki,
revived many memories for George as the past coupled with the future.
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George with one of the tiny cubs
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The lions did not returen to the
camp that night so the following morning, after a quick cup of tea, we joined
George and his trackers to search for them. A coolbox of goat meat was loaded
into the back of the land rover in case we found the lions. Jane and Margot
climbed into the middle seats while I joined George in the front. We wound
our way down the trail past Kora Rock, scanning the stony ground for signs
of the lions. The vegetation was typical of the dry country and the bark-shedding
Commiphora trees were a common sight. Initially we found no sign of the
lions. We paused on the banks of the Tana River to scan the area and to
check the surrounding area for spoor. The spot at which we had stopped was
the same one where, several years earlier, George had a dramatic and almost
fatal encounter with a wounded hippo. At that time he had recently lost
one of his lions to the jaws of a hippo, and not long afterwards he had
almost shared the same fate. When he discovered the wounded hippo George
had stepped from his vehicle in order to have a clearer view of the animal.
Suddenly the hippo sensed his presence, turned, and charged towards him.
George managed to leap into his land rover and slam the door, just as the
infuriated creature crashed into the vehicle. Before he was able to start
the engine the hippo had rammed the vehicle repeatedly, almost toppling
it. It then bit deep into the mudguard before eventually retreating into
the shallows of Tana. |
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the river where we stopped again to check for tracks and to have a drink.
With hastily improvised fishing rods the two trackers quickly disappeared
into the bush, hoping to catch catfish while we paused to survey the area.
While George prepared his ritual gin and orange, I asked his views on telepathy
between man and lion, knowing that he had some uncanny experiences which
it seemed could only be attributed to telepathy. On occasions George's lions
have displayed the strange ability to arrive at the camp exactly as he had
returned after a period away. In some way they seem to anticipate his arrival.
An example of this phenomenon took place after George had spent a lengthy
period having an eye operation in Austria. The lions had not been seen at
all during his absence. But as he sat alone sorting his mail, the day after
his return, he heard a familiar sound and looked up into the eyes of the
lioness Koretta. Behind her were two small cubs which no one had seen before.
She had come to present them to George. |
Playing with one of the trio of cubs
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With the Adamson lions in transit at the Nairobi National
Park
(Joe Cheffings)
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This "communication of the mind" has also taken place at Kora
in a different form. Several years before his death, George's brother
Terence discovered that he had the gift of divining. With a pendulum,
pencil and map he was able to locate the lions with what, according to
George, was a seventy-five percent success rate. Terence predicted the
death of the lion Growe, who was subsequently discovered to have been
poisoned. He also accurately predicted where George would find Glowe's
sister, Growe. George drove to the area indicated by Terence and there,
in the night, he found the lioness.
I feel that the question of telepathy between man and beast will be explained
in time as our knowledge expands and we explore more deeply the complex
avenues of this subject. Certainly when I studied the lions of the Northern
Tuli Game Reserve in Botswana I had experiences when the behavior of certain
lions went against the accepted norms. At that time I had developed a
strong empathy with one male lion in particular--the lion whom I named
Darky. Coincidence aside, this lion repeatedly walked up to my side of
an open vehicle, approaching closely without any signs of aggression.
At close range--a distance of two or three metres--he would stop and stare
at me for a while before slumping to the ground. After resting, he would
rise and literally brush against my side of the vehicle, occasionally
turning to look in may direction as he walked away.
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One time I was following Darky on foot and knew that he was just a couple
of minutes in from of me. I followed his tracks into a small dense area
of scrub. After entering the thicket I sensed that I had been observed,
but felt no fear. I lost his tracks, but continued for a short while in
the general direction in which he appeared to be heading. Finding no further
tracks, I returned to the place where I had last seen his spoor. There,
overlapping my bootmarks, I found his fresh tracks. He had stood over
my tracks, probably watching me. There had been no aggression on his part,
as if he had sensed that I meant him no harm. Experiences such as these
seem to me to demonstrate that a strong empathy can be developed between
man and lion, and I was curious to learn more about this phenomenon.
My conversation on the subject with George that morning was a revelation,
as it is a subject to which very few people can relate. With George I
was able to express my feelings openly and was not surprised that he had
had experiences similar to mine.
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A passing troupe of Somali nomads and their camels
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