It’s not always like that, you know. Action and hunting and punch-ups and kills and copulations. I know that’s the sort of thing people like to tell you about when they are back from safari, and I know it’s what you see on wildlife documentaries: as if all nature was a conspiracy of cruelties.

But that’s like highlights of a football match, when you only get the goals and the sendings-off. We’d just had breakfast at Takwela Camp on the banks of the Luangwa River in Zambia, and then crossed the river by vehicle as the sun was climbing up the sky.

We set off walking through riverine glades of immense beauty and after a while, there were the elephants. So we stopped and looked at each other for a bit and — well, that was it really. But I’ll give you a little more detail.

How far off were they? Maybe 100 yards. At first they were unaware of us, intent on breakfast, the sound of ripped and crackling vegetation filling their enormous ears. Then they realised something was up, so they paused and looked us over: seven humans, standing still, making no threatening movements, thinking no threatening thoughts.

There were eight of them, mostly adult females, though there was a small calf as well. A female with asymmetric tusks – you could tell she was the matriarch from the authority and responsibility of her bearing, and from the way the others took their cue from her – was clearly thinking things through.

Eventually she started to eat again, and the other followed her lead. The calf turned to its mother – a different adult to the matriarch – and suckled enthusiastically. And we shared the air with the elephants and the elephants shared the air with us. We were all standing on the same bit of the planet and the bush around us was calm and still. After a long while we moved off, and did so politely and but not sneakily. The elephants watched us go without pausing their breakfast. The whole world was at peace.

It’s never something to presume on.  But always something to savour.

• I was co-leading a trip with Wildlife Worldwide https://www.wildlifeworldwide.com/discover/zambia