September 1961
This is the sequel to Mrs. Adamson’s best seller last year about the young lioness who became her friend. One tends to take books that have such universal success for granted, or even to discount them - like good health, when one has it, seems scarcely worthy of remark - but the fact is that books containing such a remarkable story as Born Free are best sellers for very good reasons, and the universal appeal can have valuable - and practical - results. Sequels to any such triumphs are regarded with joy by the commercial - they are usually easy to sell - and with suspicion by those who pride themselves on knowing a good book when they read one: is the author or publisher simple cashing in on the earlier phenomenal success? In this case - no, they aren’t; this is another good book - just as worth reading and having as Born Free, because it is not a repetition, but a continuation of Mrs. Adamson’s courageous and charming experiment.
It is an account of what happened after their friend had mated with a wild lion and had three cubs by him. In order that Elsa’s natural life should continue and grow, the Adamsons have always risked their private relationship with Elsa: at all times they have been prepared for and even expected her reversion to a totally wild life in which they could take no part. At the same time they never abandoned her when they thought she might need their protection, and it is this kind of intelligent generosity which makes the whole saga unique. Elsa seems always to have repaid this (shamefully rare) example of man’s behaviour to animals not only with extreme trust, but with the most delicate understanding of how it should be expressed. For instance - because it was necessary for the cubs to grow up efficiently wild, Mrs. Adamson resisted all temptation to make pets of them, and when, remaining wild, they grew jealous of their mother’s affection for her, it was Elsa who arranged the situation with great tact and determination. The cubs would be given a carcase, and only when they were really settled at it, would Elsa go and talk to her friend. If she thought that Mrs. Adamson did not understand how the line should be drawn between protection and interference, she would make it very plain: mistakes were made which each side respected, and good behaviour from either was always rewarded with signs of affection. The Adamsons enjoyed the marvellous pleasure of being able to spend much of the cubs’ first year with them; to watch Elsa training them to be sensible, practical lions in between her nights spent on their camp beds or the roof of their Land-Rover.
They all spent a last Christmas together in 1960, and a month later Elsa died from a parasite which destroys the red blood corpuscles, and the cubs were moved to Serengeti National Park. The moral of this story seems to be that if you want a really interesting and good relationship with anyone, you have to put far more into it without expecting any return than most of us realise; a platitude, no doubt, but judging by the state of the world, one which is sharpening to a point.