Lion Called Christian

by Anthony Bourke

  On the following day George thought that enough time had elapsed for Christian to be safely introduced to Boy outside the compound. It was a meeting we had all waited for anxiously, but aware that if there was a fight between them, Christian had no chance. The decision was George's, and we relied on his experience and judgement. We led Christian up onto Kora Rock behind the camp where he wanted them to meet. Then George led Boy and Katania up from a different direction. Boy and Katania lay down about fifteen yards from Christian, who was watching intently. For twenty minutes we stood nervously and watched and waited. Although impatient to make contact with Boy, Christian correctly sensed that it was not for him to make the first move.

  Katania finally became bored with the tense situation and wandered toward Christian, and they greeted one another. Boy immediately stood up and charged at him. It was a very frightening moment, intensified by their roars and snarls. Christian rolled over on his back submissively, and, satisfied, Boy lay down a few yards from him. Although they appeared to be fighting savagely, with paws and legs flailing, very little physical contact had been made, and Christian seemed to be unhurt.

  After an interval of about ten minutes, Katania, who had wisely run off during the encounter, again came over to Christian and triggered off another frightening performance. This time Boy walked away, leaving Christian badly shaken and looking miserable. He then came over to us and, comforting him, we walked back to camp, noting a few scratches and a slight limp.

  Although it was an orchestrated situation, we had witnessed a natural introduction between an adult lion and a younger lion. Despite our feelings for Christian, we felt we were intruders in animal society and their protocol. Christian had instinctively known what his role was, and he had followed the conventions of the lion world by his submission. George commented that Christian had shown considerable courage by his determination to face Boy and not flee from him. Christian was obviously growing fond of Katania, but it was Boy's acceptance he was so anxious to win. To gain this, he had to endure some ongoing unpleasant but necessary formalities.

  We could now all live in the same compound. Over the next few days, Christian stayed as close to Boy as he would permit. If Christian was too daring, Boy would charge, but the charges had lost their intensity. Christian concentrated adoringly on Boy and even imitated his movements; he followed him around, sat down when he sat down, and lay in the same position. We often saw him lying just around a corner from Boy, a clever trick to get closer to him than would normally be allowed. He sometimes played with Katania, but she was a poor second to Boy. Christian was still affectionate toward us, but he was definitely a lion's lion.

  Each morning we went walking with George and the lions until they chose some shade in which to spend the hottest hours of the day. Christian followed behind Boy and Katania, but sat down and looked in another direction whenever Boy noticed him. In the afternoons we would find the three lions together, but Christian was always a few yards away, not yet an accepted member of the pride.

  We had an extraordinary human-animal coexistence living with the lions at Kora. It was a potentially very dangerous environment, but expertly created and controlled by George's experience and knowledge of lion behavior. George's confidence in both lions and humans was sometimes questioned over the years by his detractors, but overall, his faith had been justified. We spent ridiculous nights with the three lions often in our tent. While Katania bit our toes or stole our blankets, Christian hid under a bed, and Boy roared thunderously, followed by any number of defiant grunts.

  After a few days Boy greeted us in the same way he greeted George, and his huge head would rub up against us. He had a seemingly placid nature, but a total assumption of superiority. Like all cats, everything had to be his idea, and he did only what he wanted to do. Filming had continued at Kora, and we often had to wait hours until Boy was suitably positioned. In contrast we just carried Christian into the correct position, or simply rolled him over to face the cameras. We found ourselves describing Boy as a "marvelous" lion, and physically he was, but compared with Christian's youthful exuberance, he seemed to have less personality. Our praise of Boy was really just relief that he had eaten neither us nor Christian.

  Christian had now been in Africa for several weeks. He was tougher and his pads had hardened and he was growing into a very handsome lion. Bill described him as the "Jean-Paul Belmondo of the lion world," referring to a French film star of the time. Christian had always been healthy, but one day he was suddenly listless. We thought he might be depressed by Boy's reluctance to fully accept him, but because of the whiteness of his gums and his hot nose, George took his temperature and diagnosed tick fever. Christian had no immunity against this disease, and George, fortunately anticipating it, was able to inject him with the appropriate vaccine. He believed that Elsa had died from tick fever, and that if he had had this vaccine then, he might have saved her. Christian was very sick for two days but quickly recovered.

  Now that Christian had been introduced to Boy, Bill and the film crew returned to England to edit the film. George suggested that we should also leave Kora for a short time so that Christian could get used to life without us. We decided to visit other parts of Kenya and Tanzania before returning to say good-bye.

  In Kenya we visited the Maasai Mara, and in Tanzania the Serengeti, Lake Manyara, and Ngorongoro Grater. We saw a variety of animals such as wildebeest, zebra, antelope, herds of elephant, cheetah, leopard, and huge flocks of birds like flamingos, often in spectacular surroundings. We were most impressed by the dramatically beautiful Ngorongoro Grater, and for the first time met some of the elegant Maasai people, who have staunchly defended their right to a traditional lifestyle with their cattle, even more threatened today by the competition for land and resources. It was there that we saw our first lions in the wild: three cubs and two lionesses. While tourism is an important industry and gives employment to many Africans, there was something disturbing about "wild" lions that appeared unconcerned by the Land Rovers that totally encircled them, and the tourists leaning out of the windows taking photographs. One woman in a game reserve who had been driven by a guide to see the unusual sight of a lion guarding his freshly killed buffalo from vultures said, "I've come to see kills, not carcasses. Drive on."

  Conditions in the lodges where we stayed varied from nights under canvas to the luxurious. All the lodges were expensive and full of enthusiastic middle-aged tourists, who seemed to feel that the cost of their African holiday was justified if they saw one lion. While these tourists were obviously loving their African experience and expanding their awareness of animals in the wild, we were less easily satisfied, having flown with our own lion to Africa. We had been spoiled by our weeks at Kora, living with several lions, and at a pace at which it was possible to absorb a deep feeling for Africa. Rather than have many animals paraded before us, we preferred to see a few of them unexpectedly, or to sit quietly by the Tana River for hours watching the shy waterbucks, baboons, oryx, and elephants come warily for their evening drink.

  We decided to visit Joy Adamson at Elsamere, her house on the shores of Lake Naivasha, a drive of one and a half hours from Nairobi. Prior to relocating to Kora, George had been staying there monitoring Boy's recovery from his injuries and operations.

  Joy Adamson was born in Austria and first went to Africa in 1936, where she met her second husband, Peter Bally, a botanist. Joy was a very talented woman with great enthusiasms, often allied to her partners' occupations. She was a very fine botanical artist, and also painted many animals, birds, and a definitive series on the tribes of Kenya, which are in the Nairobi Museum. Joy and George first met in 1942 and had a volatile marriage and relationship up until her death.

  After Elsa the lion cub was raised and rehabilitated by them, their lives were devoted to the conservation of animals and returning different species to the wild. Joy wrote Born Free from George's diaries, which was published in 1960 and followed by a film version in 1966. Both were huge world
wide hits.

  Joy had set up The Elsa Wild Animal Appeal in 1961, which is now called The Elsa Conservation Trust. The documentary about Christian's rehabilitation and the allotment of Kora for this purpose gave George financial independence from Joy for the first time and a place to live with his lions. Joy resented this, so it was with some trepidation that we drove up to Elsamere, where to our surprise the sofas were upholstered in lion skins. When we dared ask her about them, she brushed our concerns aside with, "There are good lions and bad lions."

  Despite her reputation for being difficult and frequently falling out with people, she was reasonably friendly with us, intelligent, and interesting, and curious about Christian's background. She was relieved to hear that Boy was recovering from his injuries, although he was still limping. She was skeptical about Christian's chances of surviving in the wild. "Your stupid fat English lion will be killed, and so will George," she said. Joy was very keen to visit Kora but was annoyed at being excluded from the work there. Despite the huge earnings from Born Free, she never financially supported George's work. When she did visit Kora she was very anxious to be photographed with Christian, but subsequently declared, "It is time for humans to leave the lions alone." This was the conundrum of their lives: the success of their work and the independence and self-sufficiency of the animals made them redundant.

  Left: George, Ace, Christian, and John rest in the shade at George's camp.

  Bottom: Christian's first night in the African bush, and a reassuring paw on John's face.

  Top: A terrifying moment as Boy charges the wire, establishing his dominance over Christian.

  Above: The dramatic first meeting of Boy and Christian outside the compound.

  Fortunately, Christian reacted correctly and submissively and suffered only a few scratches.

  THE REUNION IN 1971

  Above: Christian running toward Ace and John when he recognizes them.

  Top left: Jumping up to greet Ace and John.

  Far right: Christian had doubled in size in the year since Ace and John had seen him.

  In 1972, Ace and John returned to see Christian. He had again doubled in size but still remembered them and greeted them with the same affection.

  Ace and John with Christian on the rock overlooking George's camp.

  Like some people who love animals, she did not see the irony in her often disastrous human relationships or her reputation for harshness with her African staff. She was murdered by one of them in 1980 after a dispute about pay.

  On our way through Nairobi, we took a sample of Christian's blood to the vets, Tony and Sue Harthoorn. George had correctly diagnosed tick fever, and the vets told us that there was a slight chance that it would recur, but George had the correct vaccine to combat it. Boy and Katania were also susceptible to this disease just by moving from one part of Kenya to another.

  On the long drive back we lost our way in the darkness and were alarmed when our Land Rover was flagged down by what looked like almost-naked, spear-holding warriors. We thought we should stop, but quickly wound up the windows. We were embarrassed to see they were friendly young African children with sticks, merely wanting cigarettes. In English, they directed us to Kora and "Kampi ya Simba, where the white man keeps lions!"

  We arrived at George's camp late that night. He was concerned about Christian, who for the first time had not returned with Boy and Katania in the evening. George had looked for him and called him, but he had not appeared.

  Within several minutes of our arrival, however, Christian came running toward the camp. We had been away for a fortnight and, wildly excited, he leapt all over us. George believed he must have had a premonition that we were returning. He thinks lions have a sixth sense that humans have either lost or never had. On visits to his other lions after their release in the wild, he has often arrived in a deserted camp only to be mysteriously joined by them a few minutes later.

  Christian had obviously missed us and made continuous happy grunts while leaping on us and licking our faces. When we sat down, he would clamber onto one of our laps, then stretch to have at least part of his body, his front paws, on the other lap. He excitedly jumped on the table, creating chaos and making eating impossible, and we were not allowed to sleep.

  We were delighted to see he looked so well and that George was growing fond of him and found him as amusing as we did. One night George had unwisely made Christian a snack of powdered milk, a great favorite from his English days. And now, every night, Christian followed him around, tapping his ankles and butting him with his head, until he relented and gave him his powdered milk.

  Disappointingly, Boy had still not totally accepted Christian, although there had been an improvement. George thought Christian sometimes seemed depressed by his unrequited adoration of Boy. He and Katania were now very friendly, and George thought that now it might be Boy's jealousy that was prolonging the ongoing tension.

  He told us of an incident that had happened the day we left Kora. He had followed the lions on their morning walk, and he had seen an enormous rhinoceros quite close to the camp. Boy and Katania tactfully moved well away from it. But to George's alarm, Christian began to walk toward the rhinoceros. He stalked it perfectly and came to within a few yards, when the rhinoceros suddenly turned and saw him, and snorting with rage at Christian's impudence, charged. Christian sprang eight feet in the air, over a bush, and fled. George was very amused, but hoped Christian had learned his lesson.

  Already Boy had spent several nights away in an attempt to establish a territory. He chose the opposite direction from a wild lion heard roaring on several occasions. However, it was impossible for a single fully grown lion to establish a territory alone, and George told us he planned to bring two other lions up to the camp. He had been offered two lionesses of about Christian's age, which had been captured after they had frequently attacked domestic cattle, and without George's intervention, they would have been killed.

  This time we spent only a few days with George and Christian. Each morning we walked with the lions until they chose a tree or bush in order to shelter from the sun. Christian always accompanied Boy and Katania, but Boy suffered his presence rather than encouraged it. In the afternoons we walked with George to find them, fascinated by the way he could identify and follow their spoor (paw marks), and by his deep knowledge of wildlife and bushcraft. The lions returned in the evenings to be fed, and George sometimes had to drive many miles to a hunting block to shoot waterbuck or other game for them to eat. He hoped they would soon be self-sufficient.

  We loved talking to George and had long conversations with him, not only about lions but also about Australia and our lives in London, and his life. George had been born in 1906 in India, where his father was in the British Army, and he was educated in England. He had spent most of his life as a game warden with the Department of Wildlife in Kenya. Although he led an isolated life, George kept in touch with events in the outside world. He had returned to England only once since leaving school, and he was interested to hear how London had changed now so many years later. He was kept informed by visitors, friends, and admirers around the world, as well as by Playboy magazine, which he read "for the interviews."

  He talked of his early days as a hunter and when he first realized the threat of extinction that faced so many animals, he had become increasingly concerned for their conservation. Since Elsa's death he had devoted his life to rehabilitating lions.

  George loved lions passionately, and believed it was possible to attain an understanding and communication with them that was less likely, if not impossible, with other animals. He admired their dignity and immense capacity for love and trust, and he wanted to continue living at Kampaya Simba until the lions were no longer dependent on him.

  He felt Boy was about to grant Christian the acceptance he longed for, and that the other lions, in addition to easing the situation, would complete the nucleus of a pride that would include Christian. He was confident that all the lions would be su
ccessfully rehabilitated.

  Through a series of extraordinary coincidences we had returned Christian to Africa and to the world's most knowledgeable and sympathetic lion expert. Christian now had the freedom to take his chance in the wild, and we could not have imagined or dreamed of a better outcome and this tempered our sadness at leaving him. Life would initially be very empty without him, and tears were shed. We wondered if we would ever see him again, but Christian, after a journey of several generations and thousands of miles, had returned to where he belonged.

  Several months after we left Kora and returned to London, we had news of Christian, Boy, and Katania in a letter from George, part of which follows:

  I expect you have heard about the tragedy of poor little Katania. One evening last month the three lions pushed off towards the river after having a good feed of meat. They did not return the following morning, which was nothing unusual, as on several occasions they had been absent for two or three days, once even for five days. I went searching for them two days later but without success. In the early hours of the next day Christian appeared alone. This was a little worrying as usually he and Katania kept together, while Boy went off looking for girls. However, I thought Katania must surely be with Boy. Early next morning Boy arrived, alone.