10 THE PLEISTOCENE AGE [ch. i 



engaged, some ten or twelve years back, in building the 

 Uganda Railway. He was in charge of the work, at a 

 place called Tsavo, when it was brought to a complete 

 halt by the ravages of a couple of man-eating lions, 

 which, after many adventures, he finally killed. At the 

 dinner at the Mombasa Club I met one of the actors 

 in a blood-curdling tragedy which Colonel Patterson 

 relates. He was a German, and, in company with an 

 Italian friend, he went down in the special car of one of 

 the English railroad officials to try to kill a man-eating 

 lion which had carried away several people from a 

 station on the line. They put the car on a siding. As it 

 was hot, the door was left open, and the Englishman 

 sat by the open window to watch for the lion, while the 

 Italian finally lay down on the floor and the German 

 got into an upper bunk. Evidently the Englishman 

 must have fallen asleep, and the lion, seeing him through 

 the window, entered the carriage by the door to get at 

 him. The Italian waked to find the lion standing on 

 him with its hind-feet, while its fore-paws were on the 

 seat as it killed the unfortunate Englishman ; and the 

 German, my informant, hearing the disturbance, leaped 

 out of his bunk actually on to the back of the lion. 

 The man-eater, however, was occupied only with his 

 prey ; holding the body in his mouth, he forced his 

 way out through the window-sash, and made his meal 

 undisturbed but a couple of hundred yards from the 

 railway-carriage. 



The day after we landed we boarded the train to take 

 what seems to me, as I think it would to most men 

 fond of natural history, the most mteresting railway 

 journey in the world. It was Governor Jackson's 

 special train, and in addition to his own party and ours 

 there was only Selous ; and we travelled with the 



