Sand rivers (6 page)

In the early morning, the blue sky with its high cumulus was crossed by big dark birds - griffons and hawk eagles, bateleurs and vultures, as well as the gaunt water birds scared up from Namakambari. A flock of thirty-two open-billed storks soon returned with heavy flapping to settle in a sepulchral arrangement on the bare limbs of a dead tree; the open-bills are so named on account of the odd space between long bent black mandibles through which one may see the sky. As the sun rose, the dark birds crossing the sky returned to earth and the hippos, which had settled somewhat at our approach, lowered themselves deeper still into the thick gray-brown broth of their own making. A gray heron poised in the water was evidence that fish and frogs could still find sufficient oxygen to exist in this copiously fertilized water, and that the water itself could scarcely be deep enough to immerse a standing hippo, far less a swimming one; the enormous animals were resting on their knees.

PETER MATTHIESSEN

I sat very still in the thin shade of a tree that grew from an ancient termite hill close to the shore. A hrrt brrt of wings preceded the arrival of chin-spot flycatchers, and soon other birds came to the bare limbs and dead snags nearby: doves and rollers, a white-headed black chat, the lesser blue-eared starling, sparrow weavers, and a brown-headed parrot that could not make up its mind whether I was something it should mvestigate or merely flee. On one dead limb over the pool, two hammerkops peeped sadly as they mated; a pygmy kingfisher, turquoise and fire, zipped into a burrow hidden in the mound behind me. Striped skinks emerged beside my book, and the parrot followed me all around the little hill, clambering along on the limbs over my head with electric shrieks of indignation as I stalked a very small deliberate slow bird, modest olive-gray above with pretty gray bars on a white breast, called the barred warbler. Searching for mites, the warbler worked from the base of a small bush up to the top, flew down and started again, always moving upward from the bottom until it had circled the mound to my place once more, where it proceeded to glean the leaves near my right hand.

A herd of impala picked its way around the pool to a point just yards from where I sat; their harsh tearing snorts as they suddenly departed would warn me, I thought, of the approach downwind of any lion. Soon wart hogs came in from the far side, progressing forward on their knees, tails whisking and manes shivering as they snouted and rooted in the baked earth. From the pond, in the thick heat of the growing morning, came a pungent duckpen smell to which the Egyptian geese that swam around at the edges of the hippo herd made only a pitiable contribution. The geese never appeared to feed, seemingly content with the sheer overwhelming presence of their huge and indelicate companions, and they stayed close, retreating only when washed backward, attending minutely to each thrash and heave as the herd barged about in its small space, as if there were much for a goose to learn from hippopotami. Periodically the cacophony of groans and blares, snorts, puffs, and sighs subsided with the submergence of raw, agonized heads, leaving only a mute cluster of shining wet boulders on the still surface of the pool. Then, one by one, the heads protruded, froggish pink eyes and round pink ears, followed by the generous nostrils that can close tight under water.

Sometimes hippos remain beneath for minutes at a time, thinking long thoughts or cooling the cumbersome machinery of their brains, or -in deeper water - enjoying a short stroll over the bottom. But in these close quarters the commotion resumes rapidly, a quake and rumbling from beneath the surface, then a roar and wash as the huge bodies surge, and way is made for two pink-eyed gladiators which draw near slowly, splitting each other's ears with heavy bluster. Sometimes one will turn aside, not to flee but to hoist its hind end out of the water long enough to defecate, the fleshy furious short tail whisking muddy manure into the unoffended face of its assailant. (Since subsurface elimination is much

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more relaxing - as easy, indeed, as rolling off a log - Hugo has concluded that this strenuous act, which would surely be taken amiss among human beings, is a gesture of submission among hippos.)

Many of the outbursts were not true fights but the threat display of a female hippo, directed at those which approached her calf too closely; this maternal solicitude invariably incited an uproar, though it soon deflated into disgusted snorts and weary sighs, as if to say, "What can be done with such crude people!" Since the animals were all piled up together, the cow appeared to be drawing a fine line, but no doubt she could perceive a threat not discernible to the casual observer. Despite appearances, hippos are sensitive and easily upset; they were not reconciled, even hours later, to the presence of Hugo's car, which they stared at all day with suspicion and pursued with bluster charges toward the water's edge whenever it was shifted or appeared to be departing, in order to speed it on its way.

I noticed, however, that when real fights occurred between two males, the herd did not join in the uproar but fell silent, as if watching carefully ifor a sign that the hippo hierarchy was about to change. Even the Egyptian geese retired as the gigantic creatures reared up on their hind legs, mouths wide and ivory clacking; theirliuge heads locked, the titans twisted, crashing back into the water in an attempt to come to grips as a dung-filled wave rolled across the pool, flushing the birds up from the margin and washing the water lettuce with a rich soup of manure. Then a third male came in from the side, in discreet silence, to deliver to one of the straining contestants a terrific bite upon the flank, driving it off. He then turned upon the other and engaged it in a contest of jaws which he soon won. Only when the fight was over did the nervous herd release its tensions with a mighty uproar, as if the opinions of each one had been vindicated, subsiding shortly once again as if nothing had happened. Most of this was ritualized combat, minimizing injuries, as it is among many if not most of the horned and antlered animals, but hippo bulls may be slashed open by the enormous shearing teeth, and often die. At midday one of the vanquished, apparently banished from the pool, came very quietly out of the hot scrub, anxious to get in out of the heat; he stood indecisively on the bank, great head resting humbly on the mud, as if listening for favorable vibrations. If so, he heard none and decided not to risk it, for after a while he turned away and walked back slowly into the bush, revealing a large open gash on his hind quarter.

In the early afternoon I joined Hugo in his blue Land Rover. The car is specially adapted for photography, even to the green net mesh that may be lowered from the roof on the camera side and twined with branches, thereby transforming this no-nonsense machine into a mobile bush. Hugo is a superb observer (it was he who made the famous discovery that the Egyptian vulture is a tool user, having learned to shatter the smooth enigma of the ostrich egg by slinging rocks at it) and he is full of

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interesting lore about African creatures, fron around the camp to the huge African megafaur it) that have survived the Ice Age. Not long £ wasp that had injected just enough toxin into dazed creature to be led by its antennae to a he laid its eggs, sealed in the prey as food for its two small sticks to block the entrance.

Although a very private person who himself, Hugo answered dutifully enough wl life. With friends in Holland, at sixteen, he h; one day this club took a trip to a national park, pre-set camera in order to photograph the w small as well as quiet, he could sneak up bet this was something I was good at, and decic camera," Hugo said, with a characteristic look been sneaking up on animals ever since. Afte Dutch film company, he went to Africa in 1 Belgian animal photographers Armand and JV to photograph wild animals on safari. Instead work photographing their captive animals outs period that he trained himself in the study ai which at least were wild - and the next year h own. Meanwhile, he had become friendly w Leakey, who introduced him to their eminei Louis and Mary Leakey invited this young, bi and live with them. He had not been with the when the National Geographic magazine rang were doing a film on the Leakeys' work at Ok know if Dr. Leakey could recommend a suggested the young man who happened to be Geographic liked the film and shortly assigned on Jane Goodall, a young British protegee studying chimpanzees at Gombe Stream. Hug' 1964, and he worked with her closely on her C

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for the chance to come here. Only a well-planned safari like thij could expect to penetrate the Selous to the depth that would justif effort, and such a safari was the ambition of almost everyone we ] who was concerned with wildlife m East Africa. Very few had ma and we took the opportunity without hesitation when it came.

Maria, who was raised in Tanzania, Karen Ross, completing studies as an ecologist, and Robin Pope, a wildlife guide in Zan' Luangwa Valley, were all very eager to come too, and the Nich( family was happy to return. As for Rick Bonham, he had perse^ despite the warnings of people in Nairobi that his caravan would i get across the Tanzanian border and despite the refusal of the insui companies to underwrite him; like Hugo and me, he refused to mis: chance. Even my publishers in London had informed me that the> this project not as a commercial venture but as something that "ou^ be done". The only one with a cynical vie\^ of all this enthusiasrr Brian Nicholson, who could not bear to be thought soft-heart( sentimental.

Wild dogs visited the pool, first two, then the whole pack. The sti bat-eared creatures circled around behind the car with curiosity, emi that odd grunt-bark of alarm that contrasts so strangely with birdlike twitterings of greetings and contentment. These were all i looking animals, with shining black masks and brindle on the nap( shoulders, glossy black and yellow-silver bodies, irregularly sploti and alert clean white-tipped tails. All the carnivores we had see far in the Selous - the hyena, lion, and wild dog - were big he animals with fine coats, entirely lacking the scuffed and tat character they acquire elsewhere. This may be because the abundar water and good pasture reduces the need for seasonal "migration their prey and the resultant stress of leaving their own territories."^

In the late afternoon the hippo calves began to surface, the 5 heads appearing right beside their mothers. The calves are born suckled in the water, and can lie so low with onlv their no

PETER MATTHIESSEN

anticipation of the rains. The sky darkened, and yellow cassia blossoms brightened in the dusk.

That morning, Brian had asked me if I wanted to take a rifle, knowing that 1 had planned to walk around at Namakambari; at the evening camp fire, he casually warned me again. "Even professional hunters sometimes think the hippo is too fat and slow and peaceful to be dangerous - it isn't so." On one safari, he remembered, he had had to shoot three of them, though on only two of these occasions was it the hippo's fault. The third time, on the Luwegu River, which flows down into the great Kilombero to form the Ulanga, his porters had been amusing themselves throwing stones at a hippo that had got cut off in shallow water. After trying unsuccessfully to retreat, the beleaguered beast finally came for its tormentors, who in their panic led it right to Brian. He was sitting on the ground, his rifle beside him, taking tea on his "chop box" - the tin box in which his safari utensils were carried - and when the hippo noticed him and charged, he had to shoot it; it collapsed, he said, with its great head facing him across the box.

On another occasion, Brian told us, he had sat perched on a termite hill "splitting my sides with laughter" as a hippopotamus pursued "the acting chief game warden, Mr. D. Keith Thomas, who was on an official tour of my area" round and round it. Although this story was superficially comic, since hippos lend themselves to slapstick, Nicholson knew better than we did that a hippo can bite a man in two, and I found it difficult to believe that even lonides could split his sides when actually faced with the possibility of such an outcome - the thundering beast and screeching human being about to be bloodily destroyed before one's eyes. Not knowing quite what to make of his story (not to mention his attitude, in case the incident were true), I peered across the firelight searching for some sign of mischief in his face. ("I had a rifle," Brian explained later, "and was in a position to control the situation if it started getting out of hand.")

Andrew Geddes of London, who made an airplane visit to the Selous with Nicholson and Arnold a few years ago, has testified to Nicholson's expertise in what the Warden himself refers to caustically as "eyeball-to-eyeball" encounters with dangerous animals; Geddes has described to me how Brian deflected a charging elephant with a rifle shot that struck it below the eye. "He stepped between us and that elephant; I'll never forget it. He saved our lives." In short, Brian's credentials were beyond dispute, yet I found myself resisting certain details of his accounts. This instinct was borne out by Melva Nicholson, who spoke with loving pride even of those headstrong qualities in her husband that from time to time must have caused her distress, but who was wonderfully frank and outspoken in all matters, whether talking about her own relentless snoring or

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racking her memory over certain details of his stories. "I thought there was just one hon," she might say, and when her husband would say evenly, "Always two lion, Melva,"she would not dispute him, merely nod her head.

In any case, with these hippo stories an uncomfortable silence had fallen on the company, which was relieved only when Hugo told two hippo stories of a different nature. On one occasion, an Egyptian goose was perching on a hippo's back and when her goslings, skittering and peeping at the hippo's side, tried to climb up, the animal, no doubt irritated by the patter of tiny feet, had turned and taken a tremendous bite at them. One gosling vanished into that enormous maw, only to come sailing out again unharmed as the closing jaws expelled a wave of water.

Another day, a male hippo had chased a rival out of a pool and pursued it out of sight over a rise. Soon the earth shook again as the conqueror returned, still traveling at high speed, and hurled himself with a huge triumphal splosh - ha-wiium-pha! - into the water. Perhaps twenty minutes later, the vanquished hippopotamus turned up, moving slowly and discreetly, taking a full minute to ease his bulk into a corner of the pool with scarcely a ripple.