Dear Mary | 10 October 2009

Q. We are in the habit of entertaining guests from overseas, including a countess, at a bush camp in one of the excellent KwaZulu Natal game reserves. Usually we go, in a group of up to eight, on game walks, which bring us up close to animals including rhinos. From time to time, when a rhino coughs or stomps or advances in our direction we have to scramble up into the branches of nearby (if we are lucky) trees. This is predictably wild and disorganised and less agile guests tend to clog up access to the branches. As a host I would like some advice on protocols please, Mary. Would it be correct for me to lead the scrambled retreat and be the first to leap into the branches — I am usually the fittest and most agile of the group — and pull the others up behind me? Or should I remain at the base of the tree and place my hands under the countess’s bottom and propel her upwards into the leafy and often thorny canopy and hope that she will make room for the rest of the group before my own safety is imperilled?

P.I.F., South Africa

A. Much depends on the dimensions and agility of the countess. Professional climbers assert that hauling a dead weight up from above, without ropes or pulleys, is not easy, especially if panic has caused the weight to wriggle violently. With a helping hand from below, that same fear may drive the least gymnastic dowager to scale the most branchless tree like a chimpanzee, giving you time to scurry up after her. The danger to your business and reputation if a client were savaged by a rhino while you were known to have taken refuge cannot be overstated.