The Elephant Whisperer: My Life With the Herd in the African Wild by Lawrence Anthony (the ebook reader txt) 📕

It was clear that he didn’t want me to leave. I rolled opened the window.

‘Hello, big boy. What’s up today?’

He slowly, almost hesitantly, came around to the window, standing a yard or so away, looking down at me with his wise brown eyes. He rolled his head leisurely and seemed completely content, emanating easy companionship I felt as though I was in the presence of an old friend. This was what intrigued me: the emotions that I experienced when I was with them. For it seemed to be their emotions, not mine.

They determined the emotional tone of any encounter. This is exactly what Nana had done to me in the boma when she decided it was time to leave. And this is what Mnumzane was doing at this very moment – passing on the sensation of being with an old friend. I recalled too the hostility in the boma when they first arrived. The antipathy reached out across the wires and you could feel it all around the enclosure, whether they were in sight or not.

My attention returned to Mnumzane and then it dawned that he had chosen me for company over his own kind. That was why he had trumpeted out telling me to wait as I drove past, which is why he wouldn’t let me leave.

I felt absolutely humbled, the hairs on my arm stiff with goosebumps as this colossus towered above me so obviously wanting to be friends. I decided to make the most of the experience – or rather privilege – and stayed put.

He continued feeding and the nearby trees took a hammering as he moved from one to the next, snapping branches like twigs and stripping the leaves, creating a clear browse line. Every now and again he would lift his massive headand unfurl his trunk at me, sniffing to make sure I was still there.

Eventually, after about another thirty minutes he turned and stepped aside to let the vehicle through.

‘Thank you, Mnumzane. See you tomorrow, my friend.’

His tilted his head for a moment and then with that peculiar graceful swaying gait melted into the bush.

I drove off. When the radio barked with David asking where I was, I didn’t answer. I was too awed to speak.

As I spent more time with Nana and her charges, they too started coming closer and closer until they were happy grazing near the Land Rover. I was watching them on one occasion when Nana suddenly stopped feeding and walked up to the vehicle.

I didn’t move. I could sense that she was being friendly so didn’t feel threatened, but I was totally unprepared for what happened next. Infinitely slowly – or so it felt – she stretched her trunk through the window to greet me. It was shockingly intimate, and although she had touched me before both in the boma and when she came up to the house, I believe this was the elephantine equivalent of an affectionate pat. She was letting me know that she was just fine with me being out there with them on their turf. Despite the obviously dangerous circumstances, I had never felt more comfortable, nor more at ease.

Even Frankie was becoming more accommodating and would stand quite close to the vehicle with Mabula and Marula. The battleaxe had a soft side and once even started reaching out with her trunk, but lost her nerve and withdrew as soon as I put my hand up.

Despite the feel-good factor, I never forgot that these were wild elephants and whenever they came close I manoeuvred the Land Rover continuously to ensure I was never cut off or put in a situation where I felt trapped or uncomfortable.

These encounters gradually became more and more spontaneousand as the months went by I started getting individual greetings from the rest of the herd. They didn’t go as far as putting their trunks in the car as Nana did, but they would come right up and lift them as if waving. What they were doing, of course, was smelling me. I seemed to have been accepted as an honorary member of the group.

But in the process the Land Rover was taking a hell of a beating. Elephants are extremely tactile, always touching, pushing and brushing against each other, and when these hefty jumbos bumped the vehicle, which they did all the time, they left crater-sized dents. The Landy eventually looked as though it had been in a particularly eventful NASCAR race. It attracted a lot of attention on my rare town trips and was quickly named ‘the elephant car’.

The herd also loved to play with anything that protruded on the vehicle. My side-view mirrors were long gone, yanked off as if they were made of paper. Both radio aerials went the same way and I had to have screw-ons fitted, which I could remove before venturing out to meet the herd. The windscreen wipers were stripped off so often that I gave up replacing them, just driving with my head out of the window if it rained. And of course anything left in the back was carted off into the bush, including a spare wheel that we never recovered.

For some reason they found the texture of metal fascinating and would spend hours feeling it. They loved the heat pinging off the engine, especially if the weather was cold, and would rest their trunks on the hood for long periods. In summer when the hood was searing hot they would lay their trunks down on it and then quickly yank them off, only – inexplicably – to scorch themselves again a few minutes later.

Nana and Frankie, who had both been impregnated before arriving at Thula Thula, were coming to the end of their term and I kept a special eye on them. Elephants havea gestation period of twenty-two months, which meant that, amazingly, they had gone through two dartings and captures, and had been on