Beyond the reach of my beam I could make out a black line of trees. They were like a wall beyond which I dared not venture. "Stay near the car; there are predators about." Dick had warned.
Cricket collecting was going to be excellent. October rains had turned the plains of Kirawira green and an afternoon thunderstorm had left pools of water standing in the slight depressions; by evening these were ringing with the steady purr of mole crickets.
It was getting dark by the time we parked the Land Cruiser in the center of an immense clearing, and while Dick prepared supper, I collected my gear and prepared for my cricket hunt.
Surrounded by the sounds of half a dozen or more crickets belonging to species that I did not recognize, I quickly forgot Dick's warning.
"Don't worry," I had told him, "no place for predators to stalk me here." The grass was cropped a short as a golf course.
Catching crickets demands one's full attention-line up the song, shift position, line up again, then approach the intersection of the imaginary lines. Thus preoccupied, I was drawn some distance from the car. Between catches I shone my light around the plain, but I saw nothing.
I eventually succeeded in catching each of the species I heard. Only one species eluded me. I shifted my position from time to time in my attempt to triangulate on his position. I waited in the darkness, using my light only to get a new sighting. Finally I succeeded in pinpointing the cricket under a small tuft of grass and captured him.
As I triumphantly slipped him into a vial I heard Dick shouting:
"Dan, get back here, there's a lion." I wheeled about, shining my light in one direction then another. And to my left I saw him- just a pair of eyes-not more that 50 paces away. The lion looked at me briefly then looked away.
"Get back here! Don't run, just walk!"
I walked, and shone my light continuously in the direction of the lion, but I could not see him-only the open plain and the silhouettes of low hills beyond. I reached the car.
"Take a look." I peered through the infrared glasses and saw a huge male lion sitting on his haunches staring at us. Shortly he got up and walked off and began roaring loudly. I tape recorded him for future enjoyment.
I had not felt any danger. I had attracted him, no doubt, though I could not know why. Had I been approached out of curiosity or as prey? A few days earlier I had spent an afternoon watching lions in the company of lion experts. It had been clinical; the history of each lion was known; the prognosis of their fate was calculated. There was no danger and no mystery; they might as well have been house cats. Lions in daylight cause little emotional impact. But at night they change. A tame caged lion at Usa River was a wretched creature during the day, but at night his immense roars converted him into an animal of impressive power.
My bed that night straddled the seats in the Land Cruiser and Dick slept on top of the roof rack. It was a safe place to be, or perhaps it felt safer than it actually was. It was certainly safer than sleeping in a tent, or on top of the Land Cruiser. I don't know why Dick thought he was safe on top of the vehicle. An acquaintance of Dicks had done the latter in the Kaoko-veld in northern Namibia and had almost come to his end. He and a friend had turned in one night without even the protection afforded by a tent. In the middle of the night he woke up to excruciating pain. A lion was biting into his feet, through the sleeping bag, and was dragging him off. He screamed with all his might, but the lion would not let go. Though he had gone to sleep with a double barrel shotgun by his side he had been dragged from it. His terrified and confused friend had trouble locating the gun in the dark. When she found it she quickly handed it to him. He fired both barrels at once, but into the air and not at the lion. Luckily the lion let go and disappeared into the night. It takes an ardent conservationist not to kill in such circumstances, I thought.
I fell asleep to the sounds of lions roaring in the distance.
No animal, however fast, has greater speed than a charging lion over a distance of a few yards. It is a speed faster than thought-faster always than escape.
Beryl Markham
No comments:
Post a Comment