Born Free

by Joy Adamson

  On the evening of 10 February, I was very happy to see the cubs chasing each other round the tents after their evening meal, for they had been distressingly subdued since their mother’s death, and up to now had kept quiet after eating, just sitting still and watching.

  The following evening I placed the crate in position and secured the meat near to it. When the cubs arrived at their usual time, Jespah, after a few suspicious sniffs, went into the crate. Then he came out and settled down near the meat with Gopa and Little Elsa. I talked to them in a low voice, hoping they would gradually learn to associate food with my presence. I now prepared three pie dishes every day, filling each dish with a mixture of cod-liver oil, brain and marrow, hoping in this way to train the cubs to eat separately so that when the time came to give them tranquillizers for the removal trip they would each get their ration of the drug, concealed in the titbits, and avoid the risk of any of them getting an overdose.

  During the next three days, the lions kept to their routine – spending the day across the river, at the place where they had last been with their mother, and coming into camp after dark for their dinner. I did not interfere with their routine in any way, hoping that this would reassure them and make them trust me. I felt that I was succeeding when one evening Jespah crossed the river very early, about six, and licked the pie dish clean while I was holding it in my hand. Whenever I said the word Elsa – which I did every time I called her daughter – Jespah looked up very alertly. He and Gopa knew their own names very well. That their sister should share their mother’s name was confusing, but I felt that they must get used to it. In case of an emergency it was essential that Little Elsa should know that I was calling her.

  After a peaceful evening together I retired into the Land Rover. At about three o’clock in the morning I heard the cubs’ father calling in a low voice from across the river. It sounded as though he were talking to the cubs. Later I heard him calling again from the Big Rock, and in the morning Nuru told me that he had found the cubs’ pugmarks leading to the rock.

  In the afternoon I went out with Nuru to examine the pugmarks and saw that those of the cubs soon joined up with their father’s spoor. I did not want to disturb them, so came back and watched two parrots until it became dark.

  Jespah arrived about 8 p.m. and was soon followed by the other cubs; until the early hours of the morning I watched them eating and playing and I wondered whether their father was ever going to feed his cubs or teach them to hunt.

  George’s return on the following day coincided with Jespah’s first meal inside the crate. Gopa and Little Elsa watched him but showed no desire to emulate him. However, after we had gone to bed, they plucked up courage and both ventured into the crate to get their dinner. This was a great relief to us. Now that we knew that they were able to overcome their fear of this strange object, we felt that we must at once order the kind of crates in which they could be moved.

  We decided to have three sides of the crates made of iron bars, so that during the journey the cubs would be able to see each other and, without being able to do any harm, could give each other moral support. There was, of course, a greater risk that they might get chafed against the bars, but we felt that this physical damage would heal more easily than a mind which had been injured by panic – which might arise when travelling in a dark box. The fourth side of the crates was to consist of a wooden trapdoor.

  Having made up our minds about this, I set off to Nanyuki, 220 miles away, to order the three travelling crates. On the way home I passed through Isiolo, where I found a message from a pharmaceutical firm offering to supply medicine which might help the cubs to overcome their present state of anxiety. Since Elsa’s death we had received many letters of sympathy, letters which proved how well she had been loved by people all over the world; various officials connected with zoos had suggested taking the cubs, but this was the first practical offer which took their immediate condition into account. I waited in Isiolo until I could meet the representatives of the firm and was much touched by their gift of the antibiotic terramycin in powder form which they believed would strengthen the resistance of the cubs.

  I was also extremely grateful for their advice on tranquillizers. Our enquiries had suggested that Librium was the only one which we could risk giving the cubs. Lions are not only highly sensitive to drugs, but are also apt to react to them individually, and therefore unpredictably.

  When I got back to camp, George told me that he had had an exciting time while I was away. On the first day the cubs had come in in the late afternoon and, though a lion had called, they had remained by the tent all night. On the following afternoon, he had followed their spoor to the Whuffing Rock, climbed up it and called to them. Finally, Jespah had appeared, sat down near him and allowed George to scratch his head. Then Little Elsa came into view, but remained some distance away; as for Gopa, all he saw of him were the tips of his ears, sticking up behind a rock.

  On the way home, George put up three buffalo and one rhino, and was glad that the cubs were not with him. After dark they came into camp and fed off some meat which was chained outside the crate, until Jespah dragged it inside. After this meal the cubs crossed the river and spent the next twenty-four hours playing on the other side. George saw them climbing trees and noticed that they managed to get quite high up. They didn’t come in that evening for a meal, so next morning Nuru took the uneaten meat towards the studio, intending to hang it up in his cool bush-fridge there. As he was climbing down the tree, Jespah jumped at the meat and narrowly missed him. Soon afterwards, George arrived and saw Jespah tearing at the hanging meat watched by Little Elsa from the branch of a tamarind tree on the far bank. When Jespah went to have a drink George took the opportunity to cut the meat down; on his return Jespah dragged it to the river and floated it across to his brother and sister.

  About teatime George surprised the cubs on a sandbank. Gopa and Little Elsa bolted, and were followed by Jespah. An hour later he waded over and spent twenty minutes calling to the cubs without getting any response, then he noticed a movement high up in the tamarind tree and looking up, saw a leopard perched on one of the top branches; it was busy eating the remains of the meat which it had stolen from the cubs.

  Jespah now appeared and started to climb up towards the leopard, who spat and snarled at him. As the thinner top branches were too weak to sustain the cub’s weight, Jespah found himself obliged to settle in a fork nearer the ground.

  To get a better view, George began to climb up the bank; at this moment the leopard sprang down, passing within a few feet of Jespah. After landing, he made off as fast as he could, with all three cubs in pursuit. George followed their spoor down river until he came upon Jespah, who was looking intently at the treetops around him; but as George could not see any sign of the leopard he decided to leave him and return home.

  Long after dark the cubs came into camp and Jespah took his cod-liver oil from a pie dish which George held out to him. Gopa ate his dinner inside the crate. I had arrived by then, and was glad to see that he was getting used to the idea of eating it there.

  We were both very proud of Jespah: leopards and lions are natural enemies. Of course a leopard would stand no chance against a fully grown lion and so would give way to it; but for a young cub to tackle a leopard was quite another matter, and Jespah had shown great pluck in the encounter.

  I was woken in the morning by soft moans that sounded very familiar – indeed, I could hardly believe that it was not Elsa calling. But in fact it was Jespah telling his brother and sister to stop their morning chase round the tents and follow him over the river. Not long afterwards I heard all three splashing across and then two lions roaring upstream.

  Very late that night Jespah appeared for a brief moment: evidently he had come as a scout to make sure that all was safe, for soon he returned with Gopa and Little Elsa. He took the cod-liver oil and let me pat him on the head, muzzle and ears, standing quite still as I did so. After the lights were out George saw
Little Elsa join her two brothers in the crate which, with the three cubs and the kill inside it, was rather crowded.

  On the following day I again found myself in charge, as George had to leave for Isiolo. In the afternoon, when I saw the cubs on a sandbank near the studio, I observed that Gopa’s mane was now very well defined. It was about two inches longer and much darker than Jespah’s blond ruff.

  All I heard that night were heavy splashings, which sounded like buffalo in the river, and there was no sign of the cubs until the following evening. They were all very hungry, and Little Elsa cuffed her brothers and made it quite plain that she did not intend to be deprived of her share of the cod-liver oil which as a rule they licked up before she had a chance to get near it.

  They all still found difficulty in opening a carcase, and as the boys had forgotten to do so that day I waited my opportunity and then went to the cubs’ assistance. When Jespah saw me interfering with their kill he charged me. The situation was tricky for a moment as the carcase and I were inside the crate and the cub blocked the exit. Luckily he seemed to realize that I was trying to help them, and waited till I had finished the job; in this he gave proof of a degree of intelligence and good nature which reminded me very much of his mother.

  More than twenty-four hours passed before I saw the cubs again; then in the early hours of the morning I heard their father’s call, first from close by, and finally from near the Big Rock; and soon afterwards I heard the cubs lapping water out of the steel helmet which was still their favourite drinking bowl. I climbed out of the car to open the crate and give them access to their dinner, but they paid no attention to me and walked off determinedly towards the Big Rock, obviously more interested in joining their father than in having a meal. Was he, I wondered, perhaps helping to provide food for them? During the rest of the night I heard repeated whuffings from the rock, and next morning found the spoor of all the lions leading to it. To my disappointment, by next evening their father had deserted the cubs again; I heard him roaming round, and they came into camp very hungry. In spite of this they waited patiently for me to open the crate and rushed at the meat after I had got inside my ‘sleeper’. They finished every scrap I had prepared for them before crossing the river at dawn.

  28. Have the Cubs Found a Pride?

  One evening, the cubs, for the first time, rested near Elsa’s grave. It was a month since it had been made, but although it used to be their favourite playground we had never seen them there or found their pugmarks near it since their mother’s death.

  This may have been coincidence, or due to the strong sense of smell that lions possess. On the other hand, there is evidence which suggests that animals with a highly developed intelligence appear to have some conception of death.

  This is particularly true of elephants. There was, for instance, an elephant who was apparently highly esteemed by his companions. When he died of natural causes two bull elephants stayed by the body for several days, then drew out the tusks and deposited them a little distance away from the body. Another curious occurrence took place when George was obliged to kill an elephant which had become dangerous. He shot it at night in a garden at Isiolo. Next day the carcase was moved because of the smell. On the following morning he found that the shoulder blade of the dead animal had been brought back by his companions and laid on the exact spot at which he had been killed.

  We have also come across several instances in which elephants appeared to be concerned about the death of a human being.

  On one of our safaris we were told by the local tribesmen that a man had been killed a few days earlier by an elephant and that since then the animal had come each afternoon to stand for an hour or two over the place where the tragedy had occurred. We investigated the facts and they appeared to be true.

  On 27 February we found the cubs on top of the Whuffing Rock resting in the shade of some candelabra euphorbias. Jespah came when we called to him, sat close to me and tilted his head, but kept his eyes fixed on Gopa and his sister. After a time Little Elsa came a little nearer to us, but Gopa kept aloof and behaved as though we did not exist. I saw an unusually large tick on Jespah and I was alarmed, fearing that it might carry babesia, but however cunningly I tried to remove the parasite he prevented me and interpreted my actions as an invitation to a game. It was a lovely afternoon, peaceful and timeless; everything around us held memories of Elsa, and how like her Jespah was, with his intelligent expression and friendly, responsible nature. We took many photographs and only went home after the sun had turned a deep red.

  As soon as we had come down from the rock Gopa and Little Elsa joined Jespah, and all stood silhouetted against the sunset. They seemed to be watching us intently, but perhaps they were really watching the buffalo who broke cover from the base of the rock as soon as we came near it and crashed past within a few feet of us, fortunately as anxious to avoid an encounter as we were. The cubs remained standing on the top of the rock until finally we were unable to make them out in the fading light.

  During the next two nights the cubs stayed away from camp. After hearing a lion calling from the far side of the river, George followed their spoor, discovered that they had drunk at the point where the river comes nearest to the Whuffing Rock, and that after drinking they had crossed to the other side. The next day he found their pugmarks about two miles downstream, close to those of a lion and lioness. All led to the rocky ridge to which Makedde had traced Elsa’s spoor last July, after she had been absent for sixteen days.

  George circled the ridge and observed that the cubs’ spoor stopped at one end of the rocks, while the pugmarks of the lion and lioness stopped at the other.

  I could not join George in these searches, for the state of my leg made walking impossible. It was three weeks since I had cut open my shin on a tree stump. At first the wound seemed to be healing, but then it got worse and by now it looked alarming and was very painful. I decided to seek help from the mission hospital in the nearby hills and set off with Ibrahim very early in the morning. As soon as the doctor saw my wound, he took me straight to the operating theatre and he and the matron looked after me with great kindness for two days, and by then I had recovered sufficiently to return to camp. Ibrahim had come to the mission each day with notes from George giving me news of his search for the cubs.

  3rd March. The cubs did not turn up yesterday nor during the night. Set off about 7 a.m. down river on the far bank. Saw no fresh spoor until Nuru and I got to the crossing below cataract. There I waded over and saw all three cubs. Jespah came up and sat close to us while the others hid in the bush. We started back towards camp, but as it was the heat of the day I thought the cubs would lie up in the thick undergrowth. I returned to the camp, got there about 11.30 a.m. to find that Ibrahim had arrived with news of your operation. He told me that at about 5 p.m. just after crossing the small river between here and the hospital, he saw a big lion and three cubs sitting beside the road. Two of the cubs were male and one female – the same age as Elsa’s cubs. Naturally Ibrahim thought they were hers, together with their father. He stopped the car a few yards away from them. The lion and two cubs moved off a short distance; the third cub sat still beside the road. Ibrahim called ‘Jespah, Jespah! Cu-cu-ooo!’ The cub tilted its head. Ibrahim opened the door and half got out – still the cub sat. Meanwhile the rest of them appeared and sat down on the other side of the car. Is it not an extraordinary coincidence? If it had not been for having seen our cubs at midday, I would have been convinced that he had seen Elsa’s children and would have driven at once to the river. It is almost uncanny. The cubs appeared about 7.30 p.m. not at all hungry. They stayed all night and went in the morning towards Whuffing Rock. Heard two more lions calling up river.

  4th March. About 5 p.m. I went to the top of the Whuffing Rock and found the cubs there. Little Elsa was the only one who came out and sat about forty feet from me until sundown. I returned to camp. By 11 p.m. cubs had not arrived, so went to bed. 12.30 a.m. I woke up to find Jespah in my ten
t. Got up and gave him cod-liver oil and brain, and other cubs ate goat inside the crate. Went back to bed. About 1.30 a.m. was aroused by a startled ‘Whuff-whuff’ from one of the cubs – a sure sign that other lions were in camp. As I got up, heard growls and squabbling in the nearby bush – then full-throated roars of two lions a few yards away. They roared for a long time in and around camp, until one of them went to the studio, calling in a low tone, and then back along the track towards the Big Rock. More growls and squabbling. Later they moved off towards the kitchen lugga. Afterwards I heard a single moan which sounded like a cub from near the kitchen. A few minutes later the lions were back in camp, and after more roaring I heard them finally splashing through the river and their roars receded downstream.

  5th March. At dawn found lion spoor all round the camp and through it. The lions had apparently chased each other on the sandbank where Elsa lay at the time of her death. I followed up the spoor of two cubs on opposite side of river up the ridge towards the Shamba Rock. Lost it and came on the tracks of a big lion going up a gully. Near the rocks where Elsa used to lie I found the spoor of a lioness and cub.

  There are two alternatives: the cubs panicked when lions appeared and bolted across river, or they joined up and have gone off with them. The fact that the cubs did not appear in camp until 12.30 a.m. and that they might have come across the river would suggest that they had been with the lions before coming into camp, and that later the lions followed them.

  George had to leave for Isiolo on 5 March, the day I returned from hospital. That night no cubs appeared and I did not know whether to be pleased or worried. If they had joined up with a pride and were being taught to hunt by a lioness, then they would go wild before the question of deporting them arose; and this would probably be the best thing that could happen. On the other hand, they might have been driven away from the camp by the wild lions and be in desperate need of help.