Four female kudu watched us cross the plain on the far side of the dry Chokoko River. We walked on, Sabio the scout at the front with his rifle keeping us safe. It was late afternoon, the sun hurrying down in that unnerving tropical way, the light soft and tinged with red. We were in the Luangwa Valley in Zambia, staying at Chokoko Bush Camp.

As you walk across the savannah there are times when all is peace: when it seems that the world has turned gentle and nothing in the world would or ever could harm anything else. This was one such afternoon.

Four elephants approached the muddy waterhole: aware of us, untroubled by us. We were far enough away; they could tell we meant no harm. And so they drank their fill and, since we had by now proved that we were totally trustworthy animals, they took things a little further and bathed.

There were four of them, an adult female, two sub-adults and a three-year-old. They indulged themselves in the watery gloop as only elephants can: splashing, spraying, squirting, scooping, sluicing, savouring the delicious cool of the water and the soft embrace of the clinging mud. The little one got right down lay flat out.

Elephants don’t read Browning, so far as I know, but they would certainly have understood that famous line: “God’s in his heaven — all’s right with the world.”

This is the Eden Illusion: here shared for long moments by humans, elephants and perhaps the kudus as well. For elephants and humans both it meant peace and ease and promise of a decent tomorrow: all the troubles of the world could be set aside… at least for a moment.

I looked across the plain: a lone male kudu, statuesque, was watching us, the twin spirals of his horns adding a touch of majesty. Here was the world as it was meant to be – or so it very briefly seemed — but let me cling to the illusion a little while longer. Perhaps Eve was waiting for me in the glade of winterthorns.

 

• I was co-leading a trip with wildlifeworldwide.com

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