IN THE GRIP OF THE NYIKA • chap. 



at this part of the route. The unchangeable 

 face of this expanse of sun-bleached nyika re- 

 callcil to my memory a thousand incidents and 

 adventures connected with the building of the 

 railway, when it was an everyday occurrence for 

 workmen to be seized and devoured by the two 

 insatiable man-eating lions who at that time 

 haunted these wilds. I have told the story of 

 their depredations and final end in a previous 

 volume entitled The Man-Eaters of Tsavo ; but 

 the details of many tragic deaths and narrow 

 escapes remain still unrecorded, and some of these 

 came crowding back to my mind with startling 

 vividness as bit by bit the well-known route 

 unfolded itself before my eyes. 



It was with a shudder that I recalled, in particular, 

 the circumstances connected with the death of a 

 workman who was seized and devoured near here 

 by one of the brutes. A platelayer who witnessed 

 the whole occurrence described it to me very 

 realistically a few hours after it had happened, and it is 

 as gruesome a story as any that has yet been told. 

 The victim was an Indian coolie who happened to 

 be one of a gang sent down from Railhead to 

 load up some building material which was required 

 for platelaying. At this particular time the Man- 

 Eaters had not yet made the name of Tsavo so 

 terrible and sinister in the ears of the workmen as it 



