In 1894 the British commenced building a railway line from Mombasa in Kenya to Kampala, Uganda. This railway was exorbitantly expensive but the ruling British Conservatives expected the line to allow control of Lake Victoria thereby strenghtening British control of its East African Protectorate and rivalling German East Africa.
The Railway Line
Construction commenced in 1895, dogged by controversy daily, 35,000 Indian workers were imported to lay the line and build the necessary bridges. 9,000 workers died through accidents or illness. In 1898 the line reached the Tsavo River. The Tsavo Bridge was the mission of Irish engineer and Lieutenant Colonel in the British Army, John Henry Patterson, who was born in 1867 in Ballymahon, Co Longford, Ireland. He joined the British army at seventeen, serving most of career in India where he learned Hindi, which, coupled with his engineering talents made him the most suitable candidate to head the project.
The Local Scrub Thorn Landscape
Patterson described the landscape: 'The jungle consisted of stunted, sun-bleached white thorn, nyika, which hemmed in the railway line.' Robert Preston, a railway engineer colleague, found human skulls and chewed bones, he told Patterson, who dismissed this evidence of lion attacks, probably to prevent paralysing fear from affecting the railway workers. Patterson instigated a murder investigation when Preston and some Sikhs found two men killed by man-eating lions.
The dawn killing of the Sikh worker, in March, was examined at dawn by Patterson and Captain Haslem, who identified the lion killing and retrieved the head for formal identification.
The Lion Attacks Continue
- There were many big-game hunters in Africa but they would not tackle man-eating lions, due to their ferocity and cunning. The night after the killing of the Sikh worker, Patterson waited in a tree until screams marked a lion kill 800 metres away. The following night more screams indicated another kill, again 800m distant. There were eight camps for the workers along 1.5km of railway track with 3,000 workers. The two lions had a large area of potential targets.
- The workers built ramparts around their camps, protected by densely woven walls of thorns and branches. Patterson described the 'nerve wracking experience of the lions engaging in psychological warfare against the workers.' More deaths occured, within the camps, despite the ramparts. The old hospital camp was a regular target, so, he ordered a new hospital camp built. The lions became more daring, killing and eating their quarry within hearing of their co-workers.
- Patterson and Dr Brock remained in a covered goods wagon and baited the old hospital with a few cows. Both men were frustrated, their arguing advertised their presence to the stalking lions. One lion sprang at the wagon, both fired, both missed.
Hunters Claim Bounties
The Railway Project's Chief Engineer Whitehouse described how construction had slowed and amateurs like Patterson and Preston could not deal wiith man-eating lions. A bounty was promised to any person who killed the lions. Paul Verschoren, a violent man came forward, followed by many odd characters. Patterson refused to pay for the carcases of a lioness and three cubs, but, Whitehouse overruled him and paid Verschoren the bounty. Most lions fled the vicinity of the railway line. The man-eaters went missing for six months. A drought from autumn 1897 through most of 1898 killed many locals whose unburied bodies were scavenged by the man-eating lions.
The Mutiny
On 5 September Patterson, a strict disciplinarian, was warned by an Indian worker there would be an attempt on his life. Patterson was met by many angry workers in the quarry but his steely demeanour restored discipline. The local Police Commissioner arrested the mutineers, that ended the mutiny. The camp was a violent and potentially fatal place.
The Trap Was Set
- In December, an elaborate cage, with live bait, two Indian workers, was set up, the lions did not approach. Meantime the lions became more daring, easily jumping over the thorns, killing and eating their prey within view of the workers. A railway inspector, Mr Dalgrams, fired fifty shots at the lions. Patterson accompanied him tracking the animals the next day. They discovered the bloodied body of a worker, the lions were unharmed.
- The workers believed the lions were supernatural beings. Work stopped on the bridge and workers left the camps. Mr Farquahr arrived with twenty sepoys (Indian Army privates). Two sepoys entered the caged and safe part of the trap and waited overnight. One lion entered the caged trap, yet, the sepoys, petrified with fear, did not shoot. The lion escaped and killed a donkey devouring it on the riverbank, Patterson was given Farquahr's unfamiliar double-barrelled rifle which misfired. The second shot merely grazed the lion. A hastily constructed platform ensured Patterson had a second chance, that night, to kill the grazed lion. A shot to the heart killed the first lion. Congratulatory telegrams flooded into the camp.
- The second lion returned two nights later killing and eating two goats. Patterson and his Indian gun bearer, Mahina, waited on a wooden platform, until he fired his double-barrelled shotgun at the lion as it rushed the platform. The lion fell and Patterson fired his Lee Enfield .303 rifle at the retreating lion. Ten days later the lion attacked a group of workers sleeping in a tree but was driven away by gunshots. Patterson and Mahina waited in this same tree the next night and fired his .303 rifle at the lion's chest at 20 metres range. Patterson and Mahina tracked the lion to a thicket and he fired three shots into its chest as it charged. Patterson had to climb a tree to escape the lion's charge, taking the second gun from Mahina he fired three more times to finally kill the lion. Patterson kept the two lion skins and skulls.
Man-Eating Lions Examined
These two lions were examined, they were in prime condition, one lion had a badly damaged canine. The two lions pictured, were 3 metres long and 1.5 metres tall, though male they lacked manes. They were larger and more powerful than most male lions. They kiled 28 possibly 135 workers from March to December 1898. Serious famines and smallpox epidemics in Tsavo during the 1890s killed many locals which were left unburied explaining how these lions acquired a taste for human flesh.
Patterson's Later Life
Patterson completed the bridge and witnessed the first train cross his Tsavo River Bridge in 1899. The bridge remainds in working operation to the present day. Patterson wrote The Man-Eaters of Tsavo including his other experiences of East Africa. Patterson was a veteran of the Boer War and the 1914-18 War. Patterson commanded the Zion Mule Corps in Egypt in 1915 and in Gallipoli. He died in California in 1947. Patterson sold his lion skins and skulls to the Chicago Field Museum for financial reasons where they are well visited.
Sources
- The Man-eaters of Tsavo and other East African Adventures by John Henry Patterson, Macmillan, 1947
- Death in the Silent Places by Peter Capstick, St. Martin's Press, 1981
- The Lions of Tsavo by Bruce Patterson, McGraw Hill, 2004
- The Lunatic Express by Charles Miller, Ballantine, 1971
- The Ghost and the Darkness Film
Michael Manning - ' The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity' W.B.Yeats
