Aesop's Animals by Jo Wimpenny

Author:Jo Wimpenny
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472966933
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

CHAPTER SIX

The Lion and the Shepherd

A Lion, roaming through a forest, trod upon a thorn. Soon afterward he came up to a Shepherd and fawned upon him, wagging his tail as if to say, ‘I am a suppliant, and seek your aid.’ The Shepherd boldly examined the beast, discovered the thorn, and placing his paw upon his lap, pulled it out; thus relieved of his pain, the Lion returned into the forest. Some time after, the Shepherd, being imprisoned on a false accusation, was condemned ‘to be cast to the Lions’ as the punishment for his imputed crime. But when the Lion was released from his cage, he recognized the Shepherd as the man who healed him, and instead of attacking him, approached and placed his foot upon his lap. The King, as soon as he heard the tale, ordered the Lion to be set free again in the forest, and the Shepherd to be pardoned and restored to his friends.

‘Wait here,’ murmurs our safari guide, ‘Top Gun’, ‘I need to check.’ He disappears into the bush, and we exchange nervous smiles. It’s a couple of hours after sunrise in Botswana’s Okavango Delta and we are on a walking safari. After explaining the explosion of hippo dung spattered outside our camp,1 Top Gun spotted some lion prints so, naturally, we’re following them. The son of a Bushman, he has lived his whole life on the edge of the Delta and he knows his stuff. So, when he tells us that the prints are no more than an hour or two old and that they come from a ‘really big group’, a little pit of anxiety ignites in my gut. This part of the plain was recently scorched in a wildfire, so the prints – which are worryingly large – stand out clearly in the soft ash. We learn that cats’ paw prints differ from dogs’; cats have three lobes in their rear pad, whereas dogs only have two.

We’ve stopped near some spiny scrub, the savannah stretching off to our left. The grass is long enough that lions could be mere metres away and we’d have no idea. In hindsight, not the right thing to say. Top Gun has emerged a short way away; crouched down, he’s absolutely focused on the ground. We couldn’t be in safer hands, but we’re all still terrified about the prospect of meeting a large pride of lions in the middle of wild Africa. Yesterday, on the far side of this plain, we were chased by a protective hippo mother as we watched a pod wallow in a lake. We ran, full pelt, over the plain towards where we are standing now. It is sobering to think that we could have been running from the jaws of one dangerous beast and straight into the jaws of another.2

Top Gun is back and he’s looking relaxed. ‘This way,’ he points. ‘Banana banana.’ This is his way of saying that everything is good, so we smile, relax and continue our walk.

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