It's a Man Eater

The journal entries that follow are from one of the men that oversaw the Uganda Railway in the late 1890's. Mom always said that we were related to one of the men that helped John Patterson shoot The Ghost and The Darkness, two of the lons that were said to have eaten the men.

March 1, 1898
We have just arrived in this Godless country, all the monkeys here are slaves of the British Empire, here to help build the railway from Mombasa to Kisumu on the eastern shore of Lake Victoria named for our great queen. As Master John stepped off the train he grumbled as he looked around the camp and construction site of the railway.

"Look at these monkeys my dear boy, they are savages." I just stood there and nodded as he walked to the camp to find out the progress of the railway.

After finding the progress to be going as planned, we boarded another train for Tsavo. After several hours we arrived at Tsavo with it's ghastly and sun-stricken look of the nyika.

We went to our seperate huts and settled in for the night.

March 4,1898
We have been in Tsavo for several days when we had heard rumors of lions in the vicinity of the camp. The workers have said these lions seen around have been known as man-eaters and are unlike normal lions from what the scientists back home in London have said. During the night two of the workers disappeared and were said to have been carried off by these lions.

I fear for my life and the others.

March 25,1898
During the night, we heard screaming coming from Ungan Singh, a man of Indian descent, we all ran out of our tents to see him being dragged off by a lion that was up to 3 meters in length. This lion was enormous, bigger then I had ever seen in books.

I watched in horror as the lion grabbed Ungan by the throat as he screamed in his tongue for the lion to let go. It did not and dragged him into the bushes to kill him.

March 26,1898
Upon hearing that a worker was killed Master John had set upon to track down these Man-eaters of Tsavo as the English people soon started calling it. Master would not allow me to join in the hunts as I'm not a very good marksman. After the night had passed Master came back and had said he thinks he had shot the 3 meter lion we had seen last night.

After months of repeated attacks from these lions, my ancestor stopped writing as he was busy with preparing John Patterson to shoot and kill the lions, the next entry is from December 9th, 1898, when the Tsavo Lion nicknamed The Ghost was killed.

December 9, 1898
After many months of the workers being killed and dragged off by those horrid lions, Master finally has a plan, a dangerous one to be exact. He plans to use himself as bait to lure the lions into the open so that he may kill them. Once again, he has denied me to come with him on these expeditions for I may be at risk of being devoured.

Master has returned! He says he shot and killed the 3 meter lion and dragged it back to the camp, the creature was fearsome indeed but there was one thing missing. It had all the parts of a male but there was no mane. Quite odd, Master had said he shot the second lion and it pinned him down before he shot it a total of four times.

December 30,1898
Master has brought good news, they finally found the second lion that he shot, It was by a tree branch and it's mouth was chewing it. These lions are most peculiar but they are dead hopefully and the construction can continue.

That's where the journal ends, Mom doesn't know what happened to my ancestor after the lions were killed, she thinks he died after contracting a disease but I think he got attacked by a third Tsavo lion.