Details of Article: Tea and Crocodiles

I was working in Africa some years ago and visited the astonishingly beautiful Southern African kingdom of Swaziland to write about developments there since its achievement of independence from Britain shortly before. Ted Reilly, who ran the famous Mlilwane game sanctuary near the town of Mbabane, invited me to join him on a trip into the bush. The purpose was to transport a batch of white-eyed duck across the country in his Land Rover and to check on river crocodiles destined to attract tourists to the Hlane game park in the north-east region near the border with Mozambique, then in the middle of a nasty war of liberation from Portugal.

This part of the world is Africa as romanticists picture it, glorious Rider Haggard country where every sight and smell is an invitation to adventure. Counting the crocodiles certainly turned into an adventure. We rowed across a lake in a thin-skinned boat as lightning bolts crashed across the night sky. Pairs of red dots in the deep darkness illuminated by our flashlights showed where the reptiles were observing our approach, their eyes reflecting the beams of light like those of cats. I thought the plan was to note down their numbers and then turn the boat around, leaving the critters in peace. But Ted wanted to go ashore for closer observation. Unable to beach the boat for fear of holing it, we went overboard near a bank and waded through the menacing water to a bank, pulling the boat behind us. Every rock, every sunken log felt like a crocodile waiting to taste of morsel of me. Ted and his two Swazi assistants were hugely entertained by my obvious terror as they discussed the matter in the local SiSwati language. I could not understand the words but their laughter was eloquent.

We survived both the summer lightning storm and the crocodiles. Afterwards, we camped under a tree and brewed a big pot of tea - Five Roses orange pekoe, a popular brand throughout Southern Africa. Drinking the steaming hot beverage with milk and sugar in our tin mugs as the sounds of the African night provided the backdrop gave me an unforgettable moment - and a sense that I was a genuine African adventurer. I had stared a formidable killer in the eye - a whole bunch of eyes in fact - and then nonchalantly sipped a cup of tea. Alan Quartermain would have been proud of me.