COLONEL PATTERSON AND THE MAN-EATERS.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2659, 12 May 1908, Page 2

COLONEL PATTERSON AND THE MAN-EATERS.

It was the spring of 1895 that, on the strength of his in India, Colonel Patterson was sent out to British East Africa by the Foreign Office.

The Uganda Railway was then in course of construction, and* his priff* cipal work was to erect, a bridge over the Tsavo, the fiver from which the neighbourhood takes its name, and to complete all other works tor a distance of thirty miles on each side of it. The men under him con-, sisled mainly of Indian coolies, nuiAbering some thousands. , On one occasion, while engaged dti the work two insatiable man-eating lions appeared on the scene,- and for over nine months waged an intermittant warfare against the railway; and all those connected with it in the vicinity of Tsavo. A powerfully built Sikh was one of the first victims, picked from the tent where some half a dozen of ihisl ■ comrades were sleeping. Tracking the animal, Patterson reached the spot ' where the body had been devoured.' " ! "The ground was covered with-.' blood and morsels of flesh and bone;" Patterson writes, "but the unfortunate "jemadar's" head had been left intact, save for the holes made by ■ the lion's tusks on seizing him, and! lay a short distance away from thq other remains, the eyes staring wid:* open with a startled, horrified look in them."

That night Patterson started 011 his self-imposed mission or ridding the neighbourhood of the brutes. On one occasion there was no tree adjacent * to the half-eaten body of a donkey, so, under the belief that the lion, would return at night 1o finish his half-eaten meal of the night before, Patterson had a "machan". erected a few feet away. A machan appears to be a rude erection composed " 'of four polos stuck in the ground, and inclined towards each other at' the top. 011 them was perched a plank;, -j and on the plank sat Patterson some twelve feet from the ground.

"Darkness fell almost immediately, and everything became extraordinarily still. The silence of an African jungle on a dark night needs tpr be experienced to be realized ; it is impressive, especially when one is absolutely alone and isolated from one's fellow-creatures, as I was then. The solitude and stillness, and the purpose of the vigil, all had their effect, * on me, and from a condition of strained expectancy I gradually fell into a dreamy mood which harmonized well with my surroundings. Suddenly I was startled out of ray rev- i erie by the snapping of a twig, and, straining my ears for a further sound, I fancied I could hear the rustling of a large body forcing its way i through the bush. 'The man-eater' I thought to myself ; 'surely to-night my luck will change, and-I shall bag one of the brutes.' Profound silence again succeeded ; I sat on my eyrie like a statue, every nerve tense with excitement. Very soon, however, all doubt as to the presence of the lion was dispelled. A deep, long-drawnm sigh, sure sign of hunger, came up from the bushes, and the rustling./ commenced again as he cautiously advanced. In a moment or two a sudden stop, followed by an angry w growl, told me that my presence had been noticed ; and I began to fear that disappointment awaited me once more.

"But no ; matters quickly tojbkgan* unexpected turn. The hunter became the hunted ; and instead of either making off or coming, for the bait prepared for him, the lion began to stealthily stalk me ! For about two hours he horrified me by slowly creeping round and round my crazy structure, gradually edging his way nearer and nearer. Every moment I expected him to rush it ; and the staging had not been constructed with''an eye to such a possibility. If one of the flimsy poles should break, or if the lion could spring twelve feet, the ; • distance which separated me from th«. ground . . . the thought was not a f . pleasant on<?* J began to feel tinctlv creepy, and heartily repented my folly in having placed myself insuch a dangerous position. I kept perfectly still, however, hardly daring even to blink my eyes : but the long continued strain was telling'on my nerves, and my feelings may be better imagined than described when about midnight suddenly something came flop* and struck me on the back, • of the head. For a moment I was so % terrified that I nearly fell off the plank, as I thought that the lion had sprung upon me from behind. Regaining my senses in a second or two, £ , . realized that I had been hit bv nothing more formidable t than, an- owl, , which had doubtless mistaken me for ; the branch of a tree . . ... The involuntary start which I could not v ' help giving was immediately answer* a ed by a sinister growl from:below. "After this I again kept as still as* I could, and in a short while I heard the lion begin to creep steal-; >• \ thily towards me. I could barely make out his form as he crouched a- ' mong the whitish undergrowth, but I ' saw enough for my purpose, and before he could come nearer, I took a careful aim and pulled the.trigger. The sound of the shot was at. once followed by a most terrific roar, and then T could hear him leaping about in all directions. I was no longer able to see him, however, as fcis first, bound bad taken him into the thick bush ; but to make assurance doubly sure. I kept blazing away in the direction in which I heard - him plunging about. At length came a series of mighty groans, gradually subsiding into deep sighs, and finally ceasing altogether ; and I felt convinced that one of the 'devils' who had so long harried us wouljj troubla. i us no more." i. „ n