subject: Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson encounters with the Tsavo man-eaters [print this page] Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson encounters with the Tsavo man-eaters
When the British decided to build the railway line passing through Kenya, they sent Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson to do the bridge construction over the Tsavo River. What he did not know is that it was not going to be just an ordinary experience. It was going to shatter his life forever. When he set out in the March of 1898, he almost did not make it back home. Roaming in the savanna grasslands of the Tsavo were two mane less male lions waiting to devour any human being crossing the river. Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson had a few hundred Indian workmen. As they started building the bridge, the blood thirsty man eaters started devouring them one by one. They would sneak in their sleeping quarters at night, drag them out and reap their bodies in to pieces. The Indian workers tried building a fence of thorns called bomas around the sleeping quarters but this did not deter these giants. It is estimated that over 100 Indians were killed and their body parts eaten by the lions. The construction work had to be halted as the remaining Indians fled the lions. Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson had to think of a way of terminating this ordeal once and for all. He therefore went forth and set up traps for the lions but this did not work. He would try and ambush them at night from a tree but this too did not bear fruits. After many sleepless nights, he shot and killed the first lion on the 9th of December. The other lion was killed three weeks later. Patterson kept the trophies for himself but later sold them to the Chicago Field Museum where the man eaters can be publicly viewed.
