The first step was tentative, the fear of the unknown written across the youngster’s wrinkled face. Shielded behind a lavish curtain of feathery lashes, his sunken eyes flashed wide with worry as he sought reassurance from his mother. The distance between their mismatched bodies was no more than a few centimetres, but he edged even closer until his wiry, bristly hairs brushed her textured skin.
Water splashed at the baby’s swollen feet, the murky liquid steadily creeping up his legs with every reluctant stride. Soon, his whole body was submerged, and as the lapping waves threatened to cover his head, the young elephant instinctively stretched out his trunk towards his mother’s tail just ahead of him. Apparently oblivious of her charge’s fears, the matriarch continued to wade ever deeper, leaving the calf with no choice but to blindly follow until his feet no longer touched the ground. Seconds later his head disappeared from sight.
After an interminable pause, a miniature trunk broke the surface, spraying droplets of water in exuberance at the success of this first swimming lesson. By now, the rest of the herd were stretched across the broad Chobe River, a series of legless bumps and flailing trunks, connected in a line like
