Meeting George George Adamson’s brother Terence and I arrived in Kora after a long and uncomfortable journey. It had been a hundred-mile drive on which we had seen hippo crossing the sandy track as well as a few startled elephant and cats that are only seen at night. Terence had collected me off the Malindi bus at Garissa and driven for hours in silence. At Kora, a musky perfume scented the still air, the silence broken only by the ping of the manifold and the wheeze and crack of the broken exhaust as the Land Rover cooled down. A lithe young lioness called softly as she paced up and down outside the twelve-foot-high chain-link fence that surrounded George and Terence’s camp. Soon the calls of frogs, nightjars and black-bellied bustards began again, piercing the all-enveloping darkness of the moonless night. A white-haired old man walked out of the mess hut, his head haloed by a hissing Tilley lamp. ‘Hello, I’m George Adamson,’ he said. After supper, George poured himself a small White Horse whisky and I had a beer as we sat under the lamp.
