THE DEATH OF THE SECOND MAN-EATER
It must not be imagined that with the death of this lion our troubles
at Tsavo were at an end; his companion was still at large, and very
soon began to make us unpleasantly aware of the fact. Only a few nights
elapsed before he made an attempt to get at the Permanent Way
Inspector, climbing up the steps of his bungalow and prowling round the
verandah. The Inspector, hearing the noise and thinking it was a
drunken coolie, shouted angrily "Go away!" but, fortunately for him,
did not attempt to come out or to open the door. Thus disappointed in
his attempt to obtain a meal of human flesh, the lion seized a couple
of the Inspector's goats and devoured them there and then.
On hearing of this occurrence, I determined to sit up the next night
near the Inspector's bungalow. Fortunately there was a vacant iron
shanty close at hand, with a convenient loophole in it for firing from;
and outside this I placed three full-grown goats as bait, tying them to
a half-length of rail, weighing about 250 lbs. The night passed
uneventfully until just before daybreak, when at last the lion turned
up, pounced on one of the goats and made off with it, at the same time
dragging away the others, rail and all. I fired several shots in his
direction, but it was pitch dark and quite impossible to see anything,
so I only succeeded in hitting one of the goats. I often longed for a
flash-light on such occasions.
Next morning I started off in pursuit and was joined by some others
from the camp. I found that the trail of the goats and rail was easily
followed, and we soon came up, about a quarter of a mile away, to where
the lion was still busy at his meal. He was concealed in some thick
bush and growled angrily on hearing our approach; finally, as we got
closer, he suddenly made a charge, rushing through the bushes at a
great pace. In an instant, every man of the party scrambled hastily up
the nearest tree, with the exception of one of my assistants, Mr.
Winkler, who stood steadily by me throughout. The brute, however, did
not press his charge home: and on throwing stones into the bushes where
we had last seen him, we guessed by the silence that he had slunk off.
We therefore advanced cautiously, and on getting up to the place
discovered that he had indeed escaped us, leaving two off the goats
scarcely touched.
Thinking that in all probability the lion would return as usual to
finish his meal, I had a very strong scaffolding put up a few feet away
from the dead goats, and took up my position on it before dark. On this
occasion I brought my gun-bearer, Mahina, to take a turn at watching,
as I was by this time worn out for want of sleep, having spent so many
nights on the look-out. I was just dozing off comfortably when suddenly
I felt my arm seized, and on looking up saw Mahina pointing in the
direction of the goats. "Sher!" ("Lion!") was all he whispered. I
grasped my double smooth-bore, which, I had charged with slug, and
waited patiently. In a few moments I was rewarded, for as I watched the
spot where I expected the lion to appear, there was a rustling among
the bushes and I saw him stealthily emerge into the open and pass
almost directly beneath us. I fired both barrels practically together
into his shoulder, and to my joy could see him go down under the force
of the blow. Quickly I reached for the magazine rifle, but before I
could use it, he was out of sight among the bushes, and I had to fire
after him quite at random. Nevertheless I was confident of getting him
in the morning, and accordingly set out as soon as it was light. For
over a mile there was no difficulty in following the blood-trail, and
as he had rested several times I felt sure that he had been badly
wounded. In the end, however, my hunt proved fruitless, for after a
time the traces of blood ceased and the surface of the ground became
rocky, so that I was no longer able to follow the spoor.
About this time Sir Guilford Molesworth, K.C.I.E., late Consulting
Engineer to the Government of India for State Railways, passed through
Tsavo on a tour of inspection on behalf of the Foreign Office. After
examining the bridge and other works and expressing his satisfaction,
he took a number of photographs, one or two of which he has kindly
allowed me to reproduce in this book. He thoroughly sympathised with us
in all the trials we had endured from the man-eaters, and was delighted
that one at least was dead. When he asked me if I expected to get the
second lion soon, I well remember his half-doubting smile as I rather
too confidently asserted that I hoped to bag him also in the course of
a few days.
As it happened, there was no sign of our enemy for about ten days after
this, and we began to hope that he had died of his wounds in the bush.
All the same we still took every precaution at night, and it was
fortunate that we did so, as otherwise at least one more victim would
have been added to the list. For on the night of December 27, I was
suddenly aroused by terrified shouts from my trolley men, who slept in
a tree close outside my boma, to the effect that a lion was trying to
get at them. It would have been madness to have gone out, as the moon
was hidden by dense clouds and it was absolutely impossible to see
anything more than a yard in front of one; so all I could do was to
fire off a few rounds just to frighten the brute away. This apparently
had the desired effect, for the men were not further molested that
night; but the man-eater had evidently prowled about for some time, for
we found in the morning that he had gone right into every one of their
tents, and round the tree was a regular ring of his footmarks.
The following evening I took up my position in this same tree, in the
hope that he would make another attempt. The night began badly, as,
while climbing up to my perch I very nearly put my hand on a venomous
snake which was lying coiled round one of the branches. As may be
imagined, I came down again very quickly, but one of my men managed to
despatch it with a long pole. Fortunately the night was clear and
cloudless, and the moon made every thing almost as bright as day. I
kept watch until about 2 a.m., when I roused Mahina to take his turn.
For about an hour I slept peacefully with my back to the tree, and then
woke suddenly with an uncanny feeling that something was wrong. Mahina,
however, was on the alert, and had seen nothing; and although I looked
carefully round us on all sides, I too could discover nothing unusual.
Only half satisfied, I was about to lie back again, when I fancied I
saw something move a little way off among the low bushes. On gazing
intently at the spot for a few seconds, I found I was not mistaken. It
was the man-eater, cautiously stalking us.
The ground was fairly open round our tree, with only a small bush every
here and there; and from our position it was a most fascinating sight
to watch this great brute stealing stealthily round us, taking
advantage of every bit of cover as he came. His skill showed that he
was an old hand at the terrible game of man-hunting: so I determined to
run no undue risk of losing him this time. I accordingly waited until
he got quite close--about twenty yards away--and then fired my .303 at
his chest. I heard the bullet strike him, but unfortunately it had no
knockdown effect, for with a fierce growl he turned and made off with
great long bounds. Before he disappeared from sight, however, I managed
to have three more shots at him from the magazine rifle, and another
growl told me that the last of these had also taken effect.
We awaited daylight with impatience, and at the first glimmer of dawn
we set out to hunt him down. I took a native tracker with me, so that I
was free to keep a good look-out, while Mahina followed immediately
behind with a Martini carbine. Splashes of blood being plentiful, we
were able to get along quickly; and we had not proceeded more than a
quarter of a mile through the jungle when suddenly a fierce warning
growl was heard right in front of us. Looking cautiously through the
bushes, I could see the man-eater glaring out in our direction, and
showing his tusks in an angry snarl. I at once took careful aim and
fired. Instantly he sprang out and made a most determined charge down
on us. I fired again and knocked him over; but in a second he was up
once more and coming for me as fast as he could in his crippled
condition. A third shot had no apparent effect, so I put out my hand
for the Martini, hoping to stop him with it. To my dismay, however, it
was not there. The terror of the sudden charge had proved too much for
Mahina, and both he and the carbine were by this time well on their way
up a tree. In the circumstances there was nothing to do but follow
suit, which I did without loss of time: and but for the fact that one
of my shots had broken a hind leg, the brute would most certainly have
had me. Even as it was, I had barely time to swing myself up out of his
reach before he arrived at the foot of the tree.
When the lion found he was too late, he started to limp back to the
thicket; but by this time I had seized the carbine from Mahina, and the
first shot I fired from it seemed to give him his quietus, for he fell
over and lay motionless. Rather foolishly, I at once scrambled down
from the tree and walked up towards him. To my surprise and no little
alarm he jumped up and attempted another charge. This time, however, a
Martini bullet in the chest and another in the head finished him for
good and all; he dropped in his tracks not five yards away from me, and
died gamely, biting savagely at a branch which had fallen to the ground.
By this time all the workmen in camp, attracted by the sound of the
firing, had arrived on the scene, and so great was their resentment
against the brute who had killed such numbers of their comrades that it
was only with the greatest difficulty that I could restrain them from
tearing the dead body to pieces. Eventually, amid the wild rejoicings
of the natives and coolies, I had the lion carried to my boma, which
was close at hand. On examination we found no less than six bullet
holes in the body, and embedded only a little way in the flesh of the
back was the slug which I had fired into him from the scaffolding about
ten days previously. He measured nine feet six inches from tip of nose
to tip of tail, and stood three feet eleven and a half inches high;
but, as in the case of his companion, the skin was disfigured by being
deeply scored all over by the boma thorns.
The news of the death of the second "devil" soon spread far and wide
over the country, and natives actually travelled from up and down the
line to have a look at my trophies and at the "devil-killer", as they
called me. Best of all, the coolies who had absconded came flocking
back to Tsavo, and much to my relief work was resumed and we were never
again troubled by man-eaters. It was amusing, indeed, to notice the
change which took place in the attitude of the workmen towards me after
I had killed the two lions. Instead of wishing to murder me, as they
once did, they could not now do enough for me, and as a token of their
gratitude they presented me with a beautiful silver bowl, as well as
with a long poem written in Hindustani describing all our trials and my
ultimate victory. As the poem relates our troubles in somewhat quaint
and biblical language, I have given a translation of it in the
appendix. The bowl I shall always consider my most highly prized and
hardest won trophy. The inscription on it reads as follows:--
SIR,--We, your Overseer, Timekeepers, Mistaris and Workmen, present you
with this bowl as a token of our gratitude to you for your bravery in
killing two man-eating lions at great risk to your own life, thereby
saving us from the fate of being devoured by these terrible monsters
who nightly broke into our tents and took our fellow-workers from our
side. In presenting you with this bowl, we all add our prayers for your
long life, happiness and prosperity. We shall ever remain, Sir, Your
grateful servants,
Baboo PURSHOTAM HURJEE PURMAR,
Overseer and Clerk of Works,
on behalf of your Workmen.
Dated at Tsavo, January 30, 1899.
Before I leave the subject of "the man-eaters of Tsavo," it may be of
interest to mention that these two lions possess the distinction,
probably unique among wild animals, of having been specifically
referred to in the House of Lords by the Prime Minister of the day.
Speaking of the difficulties which had been encountered in the
construction of the Uganda Railway, the late Lord Salisbury said:--
"The whole of the works were put a stop to for three weeks because a
party of man-eating lions appeared in the locality and conceived a most
unfortunate taste for our porters. At last the labourers entirely
declined to go on unless they were guarded by an iron entrenchment. Of
course it is difficult to work a railway under these conditions, and
until we found an enthusiastic sportsman to get rid of these lions, our
enterprise was seriously hindered."
Also, The Spectator of March 3, 1900, had an article entitled "The
Lions that Stopped the Railway," from which the following extracts are
taken:--
"The parallel to the story of the lions which stopped the rebuilding of
Samaria must occur to everyone, and if the Samaritans had quarter as
good cause for their fears as had the railway coolies, their wish to
propitiate the local deities is easily understood. If the whole body of
lion anecdote, from the days of the Assyrian Kings till the last year
of the nineteenth century, were collated and brought together, it would
not equal in tragedy or atrocity, in savageness or in sheer insolent
contempt for man, armed or unarmed, white or black, the story of these
two beasts.
"To what a distance the whole story carries us back, and how impossible
it becomes to account for the survival of primitive man against this
kind of foe! For fire--which has hitherto been regarded as his main
safeguard against the carnivora--these cared nothing. It is curious
that the Tsavo lions were not killed by poison, for strychnine is
easily used, and with effect. (I may mention that poison was tried, but
without effect. The poisoned carcases of transport animals which had
died from the bite of the tsetse fly were placed in likely spots, but
the wily man-eaters would not touch them, and much preferred live men
to dead donkeys.) Poison may have been used early in the history of
man, for its powers are employed with strange skill by the men in the
tropical forest, both in American and West Central Africa. But there is
no evidence that the old inhabitants of Europe, or of Assyria or Asia
Minor, ever killed lions or wolves by this means. They looked to the
King or chief, or some champion, to kill these monsters for them. It
was not the sport but the duty of. Kings, and was in itself a title to
be a ruler of men. Theseus, who cleared the roads of beasts and
robbers; Hercules, the lion killer; St. George, the dragon-slayer, and
all the rest of their class owed to this their everlasting fame. From
the story of the Tsavo River we can appreciate their services to man
even at this distance of time. When the jungle twinkled with hundreds
of lamps, as the shout went on from camp to camp that the first lion
was dead, as the hurrying crowds fell prostrate in the midnight forest,
laying their heads on his feet, and the Africans danced savage and
ceremonial dances of thanksgiving, Mr. Patterson must have realised in
no common way what it was to have been a hero and deliverer in the days
when man was not yet undisputed lord of the creation, and might pass at
any moment under the savage dominion of the beasts."
Well had the two man-eaters earned all this fame; they had devoured
between them no less than twenty-eight Indian coolies, in addition to
scores of unfortunate African natives of whom no official record was
kept.