93 THE EAST AFRICAN RAILROAD 



made such havoc among the workmen that the situation grew very 

 serious. These men were largely East Indians, who did the work 

 under the direction of English engineers, and at times the ravages 

 of the man-eating lions became so great that the directors of the work 

 were at their wits' end how to deal with them. 



These ravening creatures displayed a fiendish cunning, lurking 

 in the thickets about the huts of the workmen and making sudden 

 night rushes into their habitations in which they usually succeeded in 

 carrying off some helpless victim. Various methods were taken to 

 prevent their raids, the villages being surrounded with fences of 

 barbed wire, but the least defect in the defences offered an opportunity 

 for the cunning prowlers and the work of devastation went on. 



One of the engineers tells a graphic story of his efforts to destroy 

 one of these man-eaters and the keen intelligence with which it evaded 

 his efforts. In vain would he lie in wait near the scene of some recent 

 raid; the next day tidings would come that a group of huts several 

 miles distant had been invaded and some victim snatched from his 

 bed and borne off in the strong jaws of the powerful brute. And the 

 hunter became the hunted, the lion stalked the engineer himself in his 

 sleeping place and only good fortune saved him from becoming its 

 prey. 



Finally, driven to desperation by the nightly loss of his men, he 

 instituted a ceaseless hunt for the brute, watching for it from the 

 branches of a tree near one of its accustomed haunts, and finally suc- 

 ceeded in bringing it down. The hide of this Napoleon of the wilds 

 now perhaps decorates some London drawing-room. 



Since the railway has been finished the lion has largely deserted 

 its vicinity. The noise of the trains may have disturbed his sulky 

 majesty and caused him to shun the line, and the stinging thud of the 

 hunter's bullet may have aided in this, for the lion is not classed among 

 the protected animals. 



Yet there are places where he may be seen from the train. Chief 

 among these is Simba, "The Place of Lions," where the train pas- 

 sengers may have the fortune to see a half dozen or more of these 

 great carnivora stalking proudly across the plain, a respectful width 

 being left for them by the smaller animals. At Nakaisu, one traveler 



