394 
African Game Trails 
Mombasa or Nairobi one continually runs 
across quiet, modest men whose lives have 
been fuller of wild adventure than the life 
of a viking leader of the ninth century. 
One of the public officials whom I met at 
the Governor’s table was Major Hinde. 
He had at one time served under the Gov¬ 
ernment of the Congo Free State; and, at 
a crisis in the fortunes of the State, when 
the Arab slave-traders bid fair to get the 
upper hand, he was one of the eight or ten 
white men, representing half as many dis¬ 
tinct nationalities, who overthrew the sav¬ 
age soldiery of the slave-traders and shat¬ 
tered beyond recovery the Arab power. 
They organized the wild pagan tribes just 
as their Arab foes had done; they fought in 
a land where deadly sickness struck down 
victor and vanquished with ruthless im¬ 
partiality; they found their commissariat 
as best they could wherever they happened 
to be; often they depended upon one day’s 
victory to furnish the ammunition with 
which to wage the morrow’s battle; and 
ever they had to be on guard no less against 
the thousands of cannibals in their own 
ranks than against the thousands of can¬ 
nibals in the hostile ranks, for, on which¬ 
ever side they fought, after every battle the 
warriors of the man-eating tribes watched 
their chance to butcher the wounded indis¬ 
criminately and to feast on the bodies of 
the slain. 
The most thrilling book of true lion stories 
ever written is Colonel Patterson’s “The 
Man-eaters of Tsavo.” Colonel Patterson 
was one of the engineers engaged, some ten 
or twelve years back, in building the Ugan¬ 
da 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 Eng¬ 
lishman must have fallen asleep, and the 
lion, seeing him through the window, en¬ 
tered 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 inform¬ 
ant, hearing the disturbance, leaped out of 
his bunk actually onto 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 undis¬ 
turbed but a couple of yards from the rail¬ 
way 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 his¬ 
tory, the most interesting 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 utmost comfort 
through a naturalist’s wonderland. All 
civilized governments are now realizing 
that it is their duty here and there to pre¬ 
serve unharmed tracts of wild nature, with 
thereon the wild things the destruction of 
which means the destruction of half the 
charm of wild nature. The English Gov¬ 
ernment has made a large game reserve of 
much of the region on the way to Nairobi, 
stretching far to the south, and one mile to 
the north of the track. The reserve swarms 
with game; it would be of little value ex¬ 
cept as a reserve; and the attraction it now 
offers to travellers renders it an asset of 
real consequence to the whole colony. The 
wise people of Maine, in our own country, 
have discovered that intelligent game pres¬ 
ervation, carried out in good faith, and in a 
spirit of common sense as far removed from 
mushy sentimentality as from brutality, re¬ 
sults in adding one more to the State’s 
natural resources of value; and in conse¬ 
quence there are more moose and deer in 
Maine to-day than there were forty years 
ago; there is a better chance for every man 
in Maine, rich or poor, provided that he is 
not a game butcher, to enjoy his share of 
good hunting, and the number of sports¬ 
men and tourists attracted to the State 
adds very appreciably to the means of live¬ 
lihood of the citizen. Game reserves should 
not be established where they are detrimen- 
