The Travel Essay

It was the end of the rains when my mother picked me up from the tawny bush where she had hidden us. My brother is a little older I think, by a few minutes. She bundled me gently in her jaws and placed me in front of the bush. I was licked all over and then left to play with her tail. She swished it this way and that and I kept jumping, trying to get at it with my mouth. My brother, meanwhile, kept trying to push me away with his paws and then tried to bite me. After what seemed a long time playing with her tail she pawed us away and trundled us back into the bush where we would now hide, again.

The days seemed to become longer. The cold fresh wind of the night would sweep through the bush and, as the moon came out, the sounds of the night became louder. There was the constant rustle of branches being broken and the leaves being eaten by a herd of elephants in the nearby thicket. Once in a while a baby elephant would come and peer across our bush, not knowing that we were hidden there. My mother had left clear signs that we were not to go out into the open. Our coats were still fresh, the cold wind could expose us and we would be unable to run around. The biggest fear was the roving lionesses waiting to hunt for their pride as the evening sun set. If there was any sign of a lioness around, my mother would scurry back and lead us up into a tree where we could be safe. But there were no such worries now. The lionesses had gone to another part of the plains.

One morning we awoke to the sound of our mother calling to us from a nearby tree. She had hunted a baby impala and had carried her onto a branch where it would be safe for us. I tried to get up the tree trunk but kept slipping down. My brother managed to reach the upper branches and once there, started to chew on the animal’s hind legs. The blood had dried into a thick slick where my mother had torn its hind limbs with her strong jaws. I could see my brother struggling to get morsels of meat in his mouth. I sat woefully under the Zambezi teak tree waiting for my mother to bite off a chunk for me. She had eaten and was waiting for us to feast. She kept a lookout from the ground underneath the branches to make sure that lions and hyenas were kept at bay.

Some days later my brother and I were left alone in the scraggly bush when we discovered a brown bottle that had washed up during the rains. I took to it with a relish, trying to chew on it and rolling it with my paws. It was hard and difficult to hold in my mouth. My brother had no interest in the bottle. He left me to play with it own my on. Then all of a sudden a jeep drew up and there were strange looking creatures in it. They had a different smell. They wore hats and held cameras in their hands, clicking away at my brother and me. They kept shouting, “Look, leopard cubs!. Look at those spots”. That’s how I knew I was a leopard cub and why I am known as “spots”.