92 
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 
