The Eye of the Elephant

by Mark James Owens

  Sitting up on the edge of the pickup, Musakanya asks, "You know Patrick Mubuka, the Camp-in-Charge at Nsansamina? He killed two elephants just north of Marula-Puku last year. Another scout reported him to Warden Salama, but he is still Camp-in-Charge."

  "Ah, but you know, Sir, it is not just the game guards. It goes much higher than them," Bwalya says, shaking his head.

  I lean forward. "How high?"

  "When you arrived in 1986," he continues, "two truckloads of dried meat were taken from the park to Lusaka every week, to the National Parks headquarters and to other officials."

  "And ivories!" he exclaims. "They call Mpika the 'Second Ivory Coast.' I know about one truck loaded with 547 ivories, all taken from the North Park in some few months."

  "What about the magistrate in Mpika? Is he straight?"

  Bwalya grinned and shook his head. "As straight as a bull's prick, Sir. I have a friend, Patrick Chende Ende, a cousin to the headman of Mwamfushi. He was charged with poaching. The night before Patrick went to court, the magistrate drank beer with the Chende Ende family. They gave him one thousand kwachas [thirteen dollars]. Next day he fined Patrick two thousand kwachas instead of putting him in prison for a year, as the magistrate in Chipata does in cases like these." He goes on to tell me that Bernard Mutondo, the poacher who killed and wounded scouts just south of the park, was never even arrested. When later charged with another poaching offense, he was sentenced to only four months in prison. Mutondo used a gun belonging to a close friend of the magistrate; it was never confiscated, as is prescribed by law. In the midst of the elephant slaughter, instead of imprisoning poachers, the magistrate is fining them an average of thirteen dollars! And he confiscates only the most dilapidated muzzle-loaders, returning the better guns to the poachers to be used again and again. Twice Mfuwe scouts have even caught poachers using the magistrate's own gun.

  "There is more," Musakanya offers. "A very strange thing. Often lately we have seen the new warden, Bornface Mulenga, drinking in Mpondo's Roadside Bar on the main road near the airstrip, that very one where Chikilinti, Simu Chimba, and the others are usually found."

  "Okay, guys," I caution them, "don't let your imaginations run away with you. Mr. Mulenga is probably just conducting some of his own investigations. I think he's straight. He has to be straight."

  "Sir, you cannot know the extent to this problem," Bwalya adds. "The police in Mpika, Isoka, Chinsali, and the officers at the armory in Tazara, they all give weapons to the poachers. And the army—I know a soldier who brings AK-47s and ammunition from the barracks in Kabwe for poaching in the valley. He comes to Mpika once each month in an IFA [military] truck and takes meat and tusks back with him. And much more ammunitions are coming from the munitions factory near Kanona. You can't believe it."

  But I can believe it. Officers from Zambia's Anticorruption Commission have told me they estimate that one hundred fifty to two hundred military weapons are being used for poaching in the Mpika area, many of them from official armories. Yet since we have been in North Luangwa, to our knowledge not one of these weapons has ever been confiscated from a poacher by local authorities.

  Then Musakanya tells me that Mpundu Katongo left four days ago to hunt on the Mulandashi River. And even now, Bernard Mutondo is somewhere along the Mwaleshi shooting elephants and buffalo. "If you fly the Shatangala route through the mountains into the valley, you shall see their carriers bringing meat and ivories back to Mwamfushi," he says. In the beam of my flashlight, Musakanya and Bwalya sketch a map showing six major footpaths leading from villages west of the scarp, through the mountains of the Muchinga, and into the park.

  "How are we going to stop this?" I groan in despair.

  "Sir," Bwalya says, "it is too big. You will not stop it."

  "We will. With your help we can and we will. The world is going to change for these poachers."

  12. A Zebra with No Stripes

  DELIA

  But for such errant thoughts on an equally errant zebra

  ... I might have seen a little sooner.

  —BERYL MARKHAM

  SIMBEYE, MWAMBA, KASOKOLA —the Bembas who have worked for us through the years—smile every morning no matter what the night has left in its wake. If we need a sentinel, they shoulder a rifle; if we need a carpenter, they lift a saw; if we need bread, they build a fire. They are as steady and solid as the Muchinga Escarpment that guards the valley.

  Together we dug up three thousand stumps for the airstrip, side by side we collected thousands of rocks for the cottages, step by step we hiked to untracked valleys. But now that the camp is long ago complete, I cannot step out of the cottage without one of them rushing forward to take from my arms anything I carry. I tell them that I am getting fat with all this assistance, let alone from the fresh bread they bake in the black pot.

  Not once have they refused a request, even if it meant climbing to the far reaches of a marula tree to cut down a dangerous limb, or hiking for days to deliver food to the ungrateful game guards. Unarmed, Simbeye has run after an armed poacher and tackled him to the ground. Unasked, Mwamba has brought me flowers. And Kasokola has carried my heavy backpack for the last mile of many hikes.

  They know that we love to hear about the wildlife, so whenever we return to camp from a trip, they describe in detail the wonders we have missed. Very early on, we realized that the longer we were away, the more fantastic the stories would be. We would like to add some of their observations to our records, but we can't quite be sure of their accuracy.

  Mwamba once told us in great detail about a leopard's killing a puku on the beach, and a crocodile's flying from the water to take the puku for himself. This episode could well have happened, and I started to write it in our "Leopard Observations" file. But at the same time Evans Mukuka, our educational officer, wrote in a long report that he had watched rhinos grazing near the airstrip. When I questioned him about it, he said of course there are no rhinos; everyone knows they have all been shot by poachers. But knowing that we would like to read about rhinos near the airstrip, he added them to his report. And so I did not record the leopard and crocodile incident. Still, we enjoy the stories and look forward to hearing them when we return to camp.

  Kasokola, deciding that I need a cook; brings his elder brother, Mumanga, back to camp with him after his leave. Mumanga, a slim, jolly man of forty, brightens our kitchen boma daily with a freshly baked pie or cake. With so much more baking going on, Mumanga decides that he needs an assistant, so I hire Davies Chanda from Mukungule to help with the cooking and other camp chores. Chanda, twenty years old, would rather be in the army than in a kitchen and he marches around camp in stiff-legged military fashion, saluting me whenever I pass by.

  This morning very early, Chanda and I leave Marula-Puku for the long drive up the scarp to Mukungule for the grand opening of the Wildlife Shop. Although Mukungule is a fairly large village, it has had no store whatsoever. Anyone who wanted to buy a bar of soap, a bit of salt, or a matchstick had to walk two days to Mpika. When the Wildlife Club that we sponsor came up with the idea of opening a shop, we agreed to purchase the first stock of goods, to help with transport, and to lend them enough capital to get started. Months later, after endless delays in obtaining their trading license, the shop—a small, neat mud hut with clipped thatch roof—is ready for its official opening.

  The shop is one of several improvements we have helped bring to Mukungule. The North Luangwa Grinding Mill now grinds maize for the villagers for a small fee, and a weekly farmers' market offers a place for people to sell their produce. The Women's Club sews children's clothes that will be sold in the Wildlife Shop. We visit the school every month to teach both children and adults the value of wildlife.

  Chanda and I reach the foothills of the scarp just as the sun greets the golden grasses, which stretch for miles over rocky knolls. Before us looms the solid shoulder of the Muchinga Escarpment, challenging our departure from the valley. A small herd of zebras emerge from the mopane scrub an
d canter slowly along the track. As I stop the truck to watch, they pause to look back at us. Bold black-and-white stripes against a golden backdrop—they merge into the spindly trees and disappear.

  Rambling over small boulders and through dry streambeds, we drive on. A few miles later Chanda says, "Madam, you saw the zebra with no stripes?"

  "What, Chanda? What are you talking about?"

  "In the herd we saw, Madam, there was a zebra with no stripes."

  My eyebrows lift. I saw the zebras and they all looked normal to me. I smile. "Well now, tell me, Chanda, if a zebra has no stripes, is he black, or is he white?"

  "I do not know about every zebra with no stripes, but this one, she is a she and she is black."

  "Oh, I see. Perhaps she was standing in the shadows and she looked black."

  "No, Madam, I have even seen her before. She has no stripes."

  "Fine, Chanda, that's interesting. Maybe someday I will see her. Now, please, can you help me decide what to say in my speech to the people of Mukungule at the opening. Even after all of our help, they're still poaching." Together we write my speech as we bounce over the scarp.

  When we tire of talking and speech writing, my mind picks up where my mouth left off, and I think. This imaginary zebra with no stripes has made me think of the elephants in the valley who have no tusks. We have seen more and more of them. Tuskless elephants occur throughout Africa. But Mark and I wonder if there is not a greater percentage of them in this population due to the heavy poaching pressure on those with tusks. Since the tuskless ones are less likely to be shot, they have a better chance of surviving to reproduce and to pass the genes for tusklessness to their offspring. We must make an aerial count of them.

  I ask Chanda what he thinks of the tuskless elephants. "Madam, as you yourself have seen, we tribesmen of the Bemba and Bisa always carry axes. As a small boy, we carry a small ax; as a big man, we carry a big ax. You can always know the size of a Bemba by the size of his ax. A man must never go into the forest without his ax, for if the way becomes too thick, he cannot pass or he must depend on his friends to cut the way. A Bemba without his ax is not a big man. That must be what the other elephants think of an elephant without tusks."

  The Mukungule Wildlife Shop is draped with a wide yellow ribbon, and buckets of wildflowers sit by the door. Dozens of villagers—adults and children—have gathered in the freshly swept yard. The district governor, who has come from Mpika for the ceremony, gives a speech honoring the game guards; Chief Mukungule with his ancient eyes asks his subjects to stop poaching; and a young student of thirteen delivers the most moving speech of the day, declaring that wildlife is the best chance the villagers have for a bright future. The ribbon is cut, and people buy soap and matches. Life is just a bit easier in Mukungule because of the Wildlife Club. Are we one step closer to winning over the people, or will they continue to poach? Chanda and I, exhausted by all the merriment, drive back down the scarp.

  The miombo forests of the Muchinga Escarpment are so thick that we can rarely see the valley below. But at one point the trees stand apart, offering a spectacular view of the sprawling Luangwa Valley all the way to the Machinje Hills in the distance. When we reach this spot, I exclaim—as I always do—at its beauty. "Yes," says Chanda, "at this place you can see as far as you can. When your eyes touch the other side, they are no longer in Zambia."

  By the time we reach the foothills, the sun is as low in the west as it had been in the east on our ascent. I can almost imagine that instead of the sun's having moved, someone has turned the valley around in the opposite direction. The grass is just as golden, the sky just as soft; we have missed the hard, bleached colors of midday. "Now, Chanda, if you see this zebra with no stripes you must tell me." I know that the chances of seeing the same zebra herd eight hours later—stripes or not—are extremely remote. But he misses the teasing in my voice and cranes his neck this way and that, searching for the black zebra.

  Seconds later, "There she is, Madam."

  "Where?" I jam on the brakes, the truck skidding to the side, and look where Chanda is pointing. In full view at the edge of the mopane trees, only twenty yards from us, is a large female zebra. Her face, neck, and body are the color of dark charcoal with only a faint shadow of stripes. Beside her is a small foal with a perfect black-and-white pattern.

  Chanda is grinning from ear to ear. "You did not believe me, did you, Madam? But here is a zebra with no stripes."

  "You are right! Chanda, you are right! She has no stripes. At least, she has fewer stripes."

  The female turns and faces us head on. With this stance her stripes fade away completely. "Madam, is a zebra still a zebra, if she has no stripes?"

  "Yes, Chanda, she and all zebras have the genes for many combinations, but in nature usually the stripes prevail because they have advantages in the wild. Like camouflage, for example."

  "Well, Madam, that may be so. But for myself, I just don't know what the world is doing, to make elephants with no tusks and zebras with no stripes."

  13. Chikilinti Juju

  MARK

  In my rudyard-kipling-simple years I read Of mid-jungle where the elephants go to die. Old bulls know, and rather than death by herd, Wait alone, and add to the fabulous ivory.

  — JOHN HOLMES, "The Thrifty Elephant"

  KASOKOLA AND I MIX a sludge of diesel fuel and sand in a pail, then spoon it into Nespray powdered-milk tins. Each is equipped with a twist of diesel-soaked rag, which will serve as a wick for the homemade flare pot.

  At the airstrip, after dark, we remove their lids and set out our lighted flares at hundred-yard intervals along both sides of the runway. I park the Land Cruiser so that its headlights will play across the end of the strip. Before going to the plane I plug a spotlight into the cigarette lighter socket. The light will serve as a beacon to help us find the airstrip in the dark. Musakanya has radioed us that Chikilinti, armed with four brand-new AKs, is somewhere in the park with an army of other hunters and bearers. For several nights we have been flying to look for his fires.

  It is early 1989, and for a while now I have been keeping two guards posted on Foxtrot Zulu Sierra. Poachers would relish a chance to strafe or burn it, or at least chop it to bits with their pangas, or machetes. To further guard against this, I have evoked several of my own brands of juju. Some time ago I mounted solar lights on poles set in opposite corners of the plane's boma, each with an infrared beam fixed on the aircraft. Whenever anyone approaches, breaking one of the beams, the lights switch on automatically and suddenly the plane is brightly lit, almost jumping out of the darkness—as if by magic. One day I convinced the game scouts that Zulu Sierra cannot be hit by bullets—by drawing my pistol and shooting at it with blanks. No holes. It must be juju. Another day I took one of the scouts flying and homed on one of our radio-collared lionesses across miles of wilderness; I even talked to her over the plane's radio—or so it seemed. The scout didn't know about homing on radio transmitters and I didn't tell him. The word about my juju has spread quickly. It may work for awhile.

  Now, as I untie and check the plane, I tell the guards to make sure the flares stay lit. Pulling its hinge pins, I remove the door from the right-hand side of the Cessna so that Kasokola can have a better view of the landscape; then we taxi to the end of the strip and begin our takeoff run. There is something unearthly, surreal, and primal about accelerating to take flight at night with the door off: the rushing wind, the roar of the engine, the vibration, and the lines of flickering yellow flares speeding past.

  I pull back the yoke and point Zulu Sierra's nose at the waning, lopsided moon as we take to a starry sky. The wheels lose contact with the earth and their rumble and vibration cease. We seem to glide through a liquid combination of nightness and moon day; through another time-space dimension where neither night nor day prevails; where their elements are equally mixed like two pigments on an artist's pallet, blended to yield an altogether more beautiful hue. This hue, combined with the cool, humid nigh
t air, makes for a flying medium that is languid, moist, and dense, like the water in a blue-black pool. We are not flying so much as sailing through this celestial pool, and I can almost imagine that the stars are white waterlilies, or points of phosphor drifting by.

  Fifteen minutes later our dream-like flight has led us down the Lubonga to the Mwaleshi, then up the Lufwashi. As far as I can see, Africa is asleep. Even the hills and mountains of the scarp are recumbent in the darkness. I bank the plane across the shadowy face of Chinchendu Hill, then back toward the Mwaleshi River. Like a silvery snake, the moonlit waters gradually resolve out of the night. Minutes later, Kasokola's faint voice finds its way through the roar of the wind and the engine into my earphones.

  "Fires! There!" He points. At a thousand feet above the ground we are nearing a gap in the ridge through which the Loukokwa River flows on its way to the Luangwa. As we pass over it, I look down into the rough amphitheater that the river has carved out of the ridge. Like a giant hearth, the fifty-foot walls glow orange from dozens of campfires. Another dragon's eye.

  I pull back the throttle and take two notches of flap for a descending turn that will head us back past the encampment at a lower height. This time I clearly see several tents set up among the trees along the river. Only Chikilinti and his friends are affluent enough, and bold enough, to shelter in expensive, conspicuous tents.

  "Can you see meat racks?" I shout.

  "No."

  "Then we've caught them in time. We'll have to get the game guards down here early." Tomorrow the hunters will split up, set up several camps in the area, and start shooting elephants. I bank the plane toward camp and a short night of fitful sleep.