Moreover, The Jemadar Shared
His Tent With Half A Dozen Other Workmen, And
One Of His Bedfellows Had Actually Witnessed The
Occurrence.
He graphically described how, at
about midnight, the lion suddenly put its head in
at the open tent door and seized Ungan Singh -
who happened to be nearest the opening - by
the throat.
The unfortunate fellow cried out
"Choro" ("Let go"), and threw his arms up
round the lion's neck. The next moment he
was gone, and his panic-stricken companions lay
helpless, forced to listen to the terrible struggle
which took place outside. Poor Ungan Singh
must have died hard; but what chance had he?
As a coolie gravely remarked, "Was he not
fighting with a lion?"
On hearing this dreadful story I at once set out
to try to track the animal, and was accompanied
by Captain Haslem, who happened to be staying
at Tsavo at the time, and who, poor fellow,
himself met with a tragic fate very shortly
afterwards. We found it an easy matter to follow the
route taken by the lion, as he appeared to have
stopped several times before beginning his meal.
Pools of blood marked these halting-places, where
he doubtless indulged in the man-eaters' habit of
licking the skin off so as to get at the fresh blood.
(I have been led to believe that this is their
custom from the appearance of two half-eaten
bodies which I subsequently rescued: the skin
was gone in places, and the flesh looked dry,
as if it had been sucked.) On reaching the spot
where the body had been devoured, a dreadful
spectacle presented itself. The ground all round
was covered with blood and morsels of flesh and
bones, but the unfortunate jemadar's head had
been left intact, save for the holes made by the
lion's tusks on seizing him, and lay a short
distance away from the other remains, the eyes
staring wide open with a startled, horrified look
in them. The place was considerably cut up, and
on closer examination we found that two lions had
been there and had probably struggled for
possession of the body. It was the most
gruesome sight I had ever seen. We collected the
remains as well as we could and heaped stones
on them, the head with its fixed, terrified stare
seeming to watch us all the time, for it we did
not bury, but took back to camp for identification
before the Medical Officer.
Thus occurred my first experience of man-eating
lions, and I vowed there and then that
I would spare no pains to rid the neighbourhood
of the brutes. I little knew the trouble that was
in store for me, or how narrow were to be my
own escapes from sharing poor Ungan Singh's
fate.
That same night I sat up in a tree close to
the late jemadar's tent, hoping that the lions
would return to it for another victim. I was
followed to my perch by a few of the more
terrified coolies, who begged to be allowed to sit
up in the tree with me; all the other workmen
remained in their tents, but no more doors were
left open. I had with me my .303 and a 12-bore
shot gun, one barrel loaded with ball and the
other with slug. Shortly after settling down to
my vigil, my hopes of bagging one of the brutes
were raised by the sound of their ominous roaring
coming closer and closer. Presently this ceased,
and quiet reigned for an hour or two, as lions
always stalk their prey in complete silence. All
at once, however, we heard a great uproar and
frenzied cries coming from another camp about
half a mile away; we knew then that the lions
had seized a victim there, and that we should
see or hear nothing further of them that night.
Next morning I found that one of the brutes
had broken into a tent at Railhead Camp - whence
we had heard the commotion during the night - and
had made off with a poor wretch who was lying
there asleep. After a night's rest, therefore, I
took up my position in a suitable tree near this
tent. I did not at all like the idea of walking the
half-mile to the place after dark, but all the same
I felt fairly safe, as one of my men carried a bright
lamp close behind me. He in his turn was followed
by another leading a goat, which I tied under my
tree in the hope that the lion might be tempted to
seize it instead of a coolie. A steady drizzle
commenced shortly after I had settled down to my
night of watching, and I was soon thoroughly
chilled and wet. I stuck to my uncomfortable
post, however, hoping to get a shot, but I well
remember the feeling of impotent disappointment
I experienced when about midnight I heard
screams and cries and a heart-rending shriek, which
told me that the man-eaters had again eluded me
and had claimed another victim elsewhere.
At this time the various camps for the workmen
were very scattered, so that the lions had a range
of some eight miles on either side of Tsavo to
work upon; and as their tactics seemed to be to
break into a different camp each night, it was most
difficult to forestall them. They almost appeared,
too, to have an extraordinary and uncanny faculty
of finding out our plans beforehand, so that no
matter in how likely or how tempting a spot we lay
in wait for them, they invariably avoided that
particular place and seized their victim for the
night from some other camp. Hunting them by
day, moreover, in such a dense wilderness as
surrounded us, was an exceedingly tiring and
really foolhardy undertaking. In a thick jungle
of the kind round Tsavo the hunted animal has
every chance against the hunter, as however
careful the latter may be, a dead twig or something
of the sort is sure to crackle just at the critical
moment and so give the alarm.
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