THE EAST AFRICAN RAILROAD 
91 
The fact is a strange one, and one whose significance cannot be 
ignored. It vastly widens our conception of the native intelligence of 
these lower forms of life. We cannot fail to admit that their brains 
work in somewhat the same manner as our own—not reaching as 
lofty conceptions, yet indicating powers of logical reasoning in the 
lower levels of thought. Certainly a significant evidence of this is 
the quickness with which the animal hosts of northeastern Africa have 
adapted themselves to the new situation, and seem to tell each other: 
“It is all right here. The thunder-wagon will not hurt you. You are 
safe where it passes.” 
The state of affairs here described did not always exist in this 
region. Years before the arrival of Colonel Roosevelt and his train 
a very different condition prevailed. In the early days of the railway 
enterprise, when the building operations were in progress, no restric¬ 
tion to the methods of the hunter existed and it was a common prac¬ 
tice to shoot animals from the train. In those days, then, the happy 
confidence between man and brute did not exist and the approach of 
the engine was the signal for a wild scamper of the animals of the 
vicinity. They dreaded its approach then as much as they disregard 
it now. The animal intelligence of which we have spoken then acted 
to the opposite effect and the warning probably went out to avoid this 
death-dealing monster that had invaded their haunts. 
But victory in the fray between man and beast was not solely 
upon the side of man. Lions haunted the locality, and though the hun¬ 
ter has found this maned and roaring animal to be anything but the 
king of beasts of old tradition, but rather a lurking and sneaking ten¬ 
ant of the wilds that fears and avoids the hunter, yet there is a phase 
of his career in which his whole character seems to change. 
When the lion has once tasted human flesh he acquires an ardent 
liking for it and is apt to pursue man with an inordinate appetite, the 
man-eating lion becoming the terror of the locality in which he is 
found. He ceases in a measure to care for his customary food and 
lies in wait for man with the intense desire of an epicure of the wil¬ 
derness. 
We speak of this here from the fact that during the building of 
the railway a number of man-eating lions infested its locality 
