We Shall Ever Remain, Sir, Your
Grateful Servants,
Baboo PURSHOTAM HURJEE PURMAR,
Overseer and Clerk of Works,
on behalf of your Workmen.
Dated at Tsavo, January 30, 1899.
Before I leave the subject of "the man-eaters
of Tsavo," it may be of interest to mention that
these two lions possess the distinction, probably
unique among wild animals, of having been
specifically referred to in the House of Lords by
the Prime Minister of the day. Speaking of the
difficulties which had been encountered in the
construction of the Uganda Railway, the late
Lord Salisbury said: -
"The whole of the works were put a stop to
for three weeks because a party of man-eating
lions appeared in the locality and conceived a
most unfortunate taste for our porters. At last
the labourers entirely declined to go on unless
they were guarded by an iron entrenchment. Of
course it is difficult to work a railway under
these conditions, and until we found an
enthusiastic sportsman to get rid of these lions, our
enterprise was seriously hindered."
Also, The Spectator of March 3, 1900, had
an article entitled "The Lions that Stopped
the Railway," from which the following extracts
are taken: -
"The parallel to the story of the lions which
stopped the rebuilding of Samaria must occur
to everyone, and if the Samaritans had quarter
as good cause for their fears as had the railway
coolies, their wish to propitiate the local deities
is easily understood. If the whole body of lion
anecdote, from the days of the Assyrian Kings
till the last year of the nineteenth century, were
collated and brought together, it would not equal
in tragedy or atrocity, in savageness or in sheer
insolent contempt for man, armed or unarmed,
white or black, the story of these two beasts.
"To what a distance the whole story carries
us back, and how impossible it becomes to
account for the survival of primitive man against
this kind of foe! For fire - which has hitherto
been regarded as his main safeguard against the
carnivora - these cared nothing. It is curious
that the Tsavo lions were not killed by poison,
for strychnine is easily used, and with effect.
(I may mention that poison was tried, but without effect. The
poisoned carcases of transport animals which had died from the
bite of the tsetse fly were placed in likely spots, but the wily man-eaters
would not touch them, and much preferred live men to dead
donkeys.)
Poison may have been used early in the history
of man, for its powers are employed with strange
skill by the men in the tropical forest, both in
American and West Central Africa. But there
is no evidence that the old inhabitants of Europe,
or of Assyria or Asia Minor, ever killed lions or
wolves by this means. They looked to the King
or chief, or some champion, to kill these monsters
for them. It was not the sport but the duty of.
Kings, and was in itself a title to be a ruler of
men.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 43 of 130
Words from 22312 to 22821
of 68125
