IN EAST AFRICA

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 150, 21 December 1929, Page 32

IN EAST AFRICA

NO "MAN-EATING" LIONS

FALLACY EXPLODED

The eyes of the lurking lion glittered with anticipation. It was a free and toothsome meal brought to his very doorstep, this herd of grazing cattle in the Kenya Colony of East Africa. Out from his hiding place leapt the king of beasts to fasten himself upon one of the grazers, which came down .to earth with a terrified bellow. At the ; alarm the rest of the cattle fled, and the native herdman came running up to the defence of his charge. But the marauding feline stood his ground. He was bolder now than he had been, for the herdsman was unarmed. And as the man approached closer, he prepared to battle a human foe. But did the lion attack the man? And if he did, was the man killed, or only mauled? And, finally, did'the lion eat the man?

Articles attributing man-eating proclivities' to these lions of Kenya have appeared in various periodicals. But now residents of Kenya come forward to declare' that the truth about the Kenya lions is far from romantic, that the big' Cats are nothing more glamorous than stock thieves.; While natiyes have aied from being mauled, it is denied by the. fEast African Standard" that any native has been eaten by a lion. "NOT MAN-EATEES. " In a letter to the New . York "Times," Leslie J. Tarlton, writing from Nairobi, Kenya Colony, says: _ "No one has been eaten for the last eight years, and not one 'man-eater' has been officially recorded or reported unofficially. This on the authority of the chief game warden. ... ' "It is true that during the construction of the Uganda Railway, about twenty-five years ago, lions did become a serious menace to the railway workers. There were special reasons for these man-eaters' activities, and the curious may learn all about them from Patterson's 'Man-Eaters, of Tsavo.' "But, alasl 'man-eaters' sound much more interesting than 'stock thieves.' Our stock thieves are not only branded 'man-eaters,' but there are 500 of 'em,' mark you. They are 'a new and terrible breed.' They go in packs 'of a dozen or two dozen'—'night after night.' One lion is said to have 'attacked a crowd of 2000 natives'—another reported to have killed no less than eighty-four. A third 'man-eater' was content with a modest forty. And the gallant 500 have 'gained supreme control over hundreds of square miles of territory.' 'Women and children have been set upon by mobs of lions and torn to pieces.' "NO LIONS OF ANT KIND." "And all this terrible time those ignorant fools in Kenya, living in the heart of it, know nothing about it, and one-, of them (the writer) was stupid enough to send down an elderly married couple to camp in the centre of these for over a week armed with nothing more deadly than a camera. Their guide was eventually persuaded to carry a rifle, which was never fired, and, to add insult to injury, the party returned after a happy visit, but much disappointed that in spite of very careful searching, they could find no lions of any kind. "And night after night a' regular stream of • travellers passes along this area, camps under a big tree at Kidongai, with no other protection than a camp lantern, blissfully unconscious of the terrible tragedies enacted in their midst among the suffering natives. . °

Ana, more astounding still, the natives are in complete ignorance of their fate, although naturally they protest when their cattle are unduly harassed." J