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Authors: Beryl Markham
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horses or in a buggy, and along the way my father would tell me things about Africa.
Sometimes he would tell me stories about the tribal wars — wars between the Masai and the Kikuyu (which the Masai always won), or between the Masai and the Nandi (which neither of them ever won), and about their great leaders and their wild way of life which, to me, seemed much greater fun than our own. He would tell me of Lenana the brilliant Masai ol-oiboni, who prophesied the coming of the White Man, ad of Lenana’s tricks and stratagems and victories, and about how his people were unconquerable and unconquered — until, in retaliation against the refusal of the Masai warriors to join the King’s African Rifles, the British marched upon the Native villages; how, inadvertently, a Masai woman was killed, and how two Hindu shopkeepers were murdered in reprisal by the Murani. And thus, why it was that the thin, red line of Empire had grown slightly redder.
He would tell me old legends sometimes about Mount Kenya, or about the Menegai Crater, called the Mountain of God, or about Kilimanjaro. He would tell me these things and I would ride alongside and ask endless questions, or we would sit together in the jolting buggy and just think about what he had said.
One day, when we were riding to Elkington’s, my father spoke about lions.
‘Lions are more intelligent than some men,’ he said, ‘and more courageous than most. A lion will fight for what he has and for what he needs; he is contemptuous of cowards and wary of his equals. But he is not afraid. You can always trust a lion to be exactly what he is — and never anything else.’
‘Except,’ he added, looking more paternally concerned than usual, ‘that damned lion of Elkington’s!’
The Elkington lion was famous within a radius of twelve miles in all directions from the farm, because, if you happened to be anywhere inside that circle, you could hear him roar when he was hungry, when he was sad, or when he just felt like roaring. If, in the night, you lay sleepless on your bed and listened to an intermittent sound that began like the bellow of a banshee trapped in the bowels of Kilimanjaro and ended like the sound of that same banshee suddenly at large and arrived at the foot of your bed, you knew (because you had been told) that this was the song of Paddy.
Two or three of the settlers in East Africa at that time had caught lion cubs and raised them in cages. But Paddy, the Elkington lion, had never seen a cage.
He had grown to full size, tawny, black-maned and muscular, without a worry or a care. He lived on fresh meat, not of his own killing. He spent his waking hours (which coincided with everybody else’s sleeping hours) wandering through Elkington’s fields and pastures like an affable, if apostrophic, emperor, a-stroll in the gardens of his court.
He thrived in solitude. He had no mate, but pretended indifference and walked alone, not toying too much with imaginings of the unattainable. There were no physical barriers to his freedom, but the lions of the plains do not accept into their respected fraternity an individual bearing in his coat the smell of men. So Paddy ate, slept, and roared, and perhaps he sometimes dreamed, but he never left Elkington’s. He was a tame lion, Paddy was. He was deaf to the call of the wild.
‘I’m always careful of that lion,’ I told my father, ‘but he’s really harmless. I have seen Mrs. Elkington stroke him.’
‘Which proves nothing,’ said my father. ‘A domesticated lion is only an unnatural lion — and whatever is unnatural is untrustworthy.’
Whenever my father made an observation as deeply philosophical as that one, and as inclusive, I knew there was nothing more to be said.
I nudged my horse and we broke into a canter covering the remaining distance to Elkington’s.
It wasn’t a big farm as farms went in Africa before the First World War, but it had a very nice house with a large veranda on which my
Sometimes he would tell me stories about the tribal wars — wars between the Masai and the Kikuyu (which the Masai always won), or between the Masai and the Nandi (which neither of them ever won), and about their great leaders and their wild way of life which, to me, seemed much greater fun than our own. He would tell me of Lenana the brilliant Masai ol-oiboni, who prophesied the coming of the White Man, ad of Lenana’s tricks and stratagems and victories, and about how his people were unconquerable and unconquered — until, in retaliation against the refusal of the Masai warriors to join the King’s African Rifles, the British marched upon the Native villages; how, inadvertently, a Masai woman was killed, and how two Hindu shopkeepers were murdered in reprisal by the Murani. And thus, why it was that the thin, red line of Empire had grown slightly redder.
He would tell me old legends sometimes about Mount Kenya, or about the Menegai Crater, called the Mountain of God, or about Kilimanjaro. He would tell me these things and I would ride alongside and ask endless questions, or we would sit together in the jolting buggy and just think about what he had said.
One day, when we were riding to Elkington’s, my father spoke about lions.
‘Lions are more intelligent than some men,’ he said, ‘and more courageous than most. A lion will fight for what he has and for what he needs; he is contemptuous of cowards and wary of his equals. But he is not afraid. You can always trust a lion to be exactly what he is — and never anything else.’
‘Except,’ he added, looking more paternally concerned than usual, ‘that damned lion of Elkington’s!’
The Elkington lion was famous within a radius of twelve miles in all directions from the farm, because, if you happened to be anywhere inside that circle, you could hear him roar when he was hungry, when he was sad, or when he just felt like roaring. If, in the night, you lay sleepless on your bed and listened to an intermittent sound that began like the bellow of a banshee trapped in the bowels of Kilimanjaro and ended like the sound of that same banshee suddenly at large and arrived at the foot of your bed, you knew (because you had been told) that this was the song of Paddy.
Two or three of the settlers in East Africa at that time had caught lion cubs and raised them in cages. But Paddy, the Elkington lion, had never seen a cage.
He had grown to full size, tawny, black-maned and muscular, without a worry or a care. He lived on fresh meat, not of his own killing. He spent his waking hours (which coincided with everybody else’s sleeping hours) wandering through Elkington’s fields and pastures like an affable, if apostrophic, emperor, a-stroll in the gardens of his court.
He thrived in solitude. He had no mate, but pretended indifference and walked alone, not toying too much with imaginings of the unattainable. There were no physical barriers to his freedom, but the lions of the plains do not accept into their respected fraternity an individual bearing in his coat the smell of men. So Paddy ate, slept, and roared, and perhaps he sometimes dreamed, but he never left Elkington’s. He was a tame lion, Paddy was. He was deaf to the call of the wild.
‘I’m always careful of that lion,’ I told my father, ‘but he’s really harmless. I have seen Mrs. Elkington stroke him.’
‘Which proves nothing,’ said my father. ‘A domesticated lion is only an unnatural lion — and whatever is unnatural is untrustworthy.’
Whenever my father made an observation as deeply philosophical as that one, and as inclusive, I knew there was nothing more to be said.
I nudged my horse and we broke into a canter covering the remaining distance to Elkington’s.
It wasn’t a big farm as farms went in Africa before the First World War, but it had a very nice house with a large veranda on which my
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