WEBVTT - Thinking Sideways: Tsavo Man-Eaters 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:02.800 Thinking Sideways is not brought to you by the jealous 0:00:02.880 --> 0:00:06.359 rival of steel Wall, which is the lesser appreciated describing 0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:11.039 tool Sheep's Wall. Instead, it's supported by the generous contributions 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:14.960 of people like you are listeners on Patreon. Visit patreon 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:22.520 dot com slash thinking Sideways to learn more Thinking Sideways. 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:37.839 I don't stories of things we don't know the answer too. Well. 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:40.960 Hey there, and welcome again to another episode of Thinking 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:45.760 Sideways podcast. The podcast I am Steve, as always joined 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:52.280 by Done Joe. You didn't sing that, Joe. Okay, Oh wait, 0:00:52.280 --> 0:01:00.760 that's the wrong episode. Next time, next time handing my guitar. No, So, 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:04.320 today's story, Um, well, actually, before we get in today's story. 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:08.880 Today's episode is part of our summer series where we're 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:11.800 taking some of the smaller mysteries and and going over 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:13.800 those so that gives us some time off during the 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:17.440 summer and it allows some time to research the bigger mysteries. Yeah, 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:22.479 like Dizzy Cooper and Stan Cooper and things. Just Dan Cooper. Okay, 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:26.760 just the entire summer full of Dan Cooper, the summer 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:35.800 of Dan Dans of summer. I'm sorry you were so 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:39.280 proud of yourself I woke up at four o'clock this morning. 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:42.560 I've been awake for a very long time. Okay, let's 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:46.520 talk about van eater. Sorry, today's story is the Savo 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:49.520 man Eaters. Uh. And this is a listener suggestion. This 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:52.720 was suggested by David. Thanks David. Yeah no, this is 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:54.960 a fun one. I had forgotten about this until I 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:57.120 came across down. The Law's fun except for the people 0:01:57.120 --> 0:02:05.200 who got eaten. Shush, jeezils we do um So. The 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:09.079 Savo man Eaters are two African lions who in eight 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:14.280 who were named locally the Ghost and the Darkness, killed 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:18.000 workers on the East Africa Railroad at the Savo River 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:22.680 which is today modern day Savo National Park in Kenya. 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:24.639 If you go to do a google on Savo, it's 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:29.120 spelled t s A v O. Yes it is um Now, 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:31.560 those lions, because of what they were doing to the 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:36.280 people who were there, they actually stopped the railroad project 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:39.240 that was going on. And it wasn't until they were 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:44.280 eventually killed by British Army Colonel John Patterson that the 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:47.280 project could move forward and complete at least the part 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:51.160 that he was responsible for. But our mystery here, we're 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:53.440 gonna to tell the story. But our mystery here is 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:56.120 why did they do it? Why? Like, why did the 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:58.720 lions kill the humans? Yes? Not not Why did the 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:01.600 British build a railroad? It's because because they were hungry? 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:06.280 Well what motivated him? Since lions are typically known to 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:10.000 hunt humans and they were they were taking out according 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:14.079 to the story great swabs of people. Well, I mean 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:20.760 they are cats and cats are jerks. Maybe that you 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:25.360 just alienated all of our feline listeners. Steva doesn't have 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:27.400 a comeback for that. We'll go ahead and just start 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:32.120 the story. Uh. In eight the British had decided to 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:35.800 build a railroad in their East Africa and colony UH. 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:38.400 And that was gonna run from the port city of Mombasa, 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:42.600 which is in modern day Kenya, and then that rail 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:44.520 line was going to run all the way to Lake 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:49.400 Victoria and then go on to Uganda. And officially it 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:53.480 was named the Uganda Railroad, but unofficially it was called 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:56.480 the Lunatic Line. And that's because there was a lot 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:59.000 of people in Parliament who didn't think that it was 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:02.440 worth it and they should be doing it. They described 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:06.119 it as the railroad that ran from nowhere to nowhere. 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:08.040 It's kind of like that high speed rail project in 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:13.360 California something like that. Um Officially, what the British were 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:17.040 hoping was that it would encourage people to move into 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:21.599 the interior of Africa and provide a method for transporting 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:25.640 trade products between Africa and Europe. And by people, I 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:28.840 mean British citizens because it was a colony and they 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:31.680 wanted to get citizens in there, because that's how they 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:34.200 were going to tame the What did they call it, 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:38.720 It was the darkest Africa, Darkest Africa, Yeah, I think 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:40.240 that was what they called that. They considered it a 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:42.279 land of savages at the time. Is the way that 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:44.920 you see it describe it. I mean again it was 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:49.120 like the yes, yeah, so this is this is based 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:52.960 on writings at that time that that was there. That 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:55.000 was their description. Yeah, I don't know that. The term 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:57.440 was actually based on the complexions of the people who 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:01.920 lived there, like sort of the you like her kind 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:04.599 of heart of darkness kind of yeah exactly. Yeah, yeah, 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:08.839 it was it was a hard place to get to. Um. Now, unofficially, 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:13.560 this railroad was also it was also intended to provide 0:05:13.600 --> 0:05:17.080 an alternative method to what the standard method of getting 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:19.760 things from the interior of Africa to the coast was 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:24.799 which was on foot, which is a long, long walk. 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:27.039 It's a long hike, and I have a lot of 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:30.039 people to carry all that stuff you do. Importers aren't cheap, 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:33.680 and because cheap labor is kind of important when you're 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:37.640 you're trading, there was a blossoming slave trade. So there 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:40.160 was tons of slaves that were being picked up in 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:43.320 that entire region and then they would be walking in 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:46.719 and out until eventually they die. So we're talking cheap 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:51.800 as free, not like underpaid. You got to buy a slave, 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:55.359 so it's not technically free. You're not paying wages, correct, 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:58.000 So therefore you're not gonna you're not gonna spend a 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:01.120 bunch of money on people. You just kitch product. You 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.960 hoofed into town. If somebody dies on the ways, whoops, 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:07.400 you're out whatever you paid for them. Then it's on 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:10.360 back down the road. Now, wonder how many slaves it 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:15.480 took to carry a car. That's the weirdest question you've 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:19.520 asked me in a while. Um, now, it did. It 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:25.560 did eventually help bring the slave trade down, It wasn't 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:30.840 the reason that the slave trade would eventually trade line. Yeah, 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:33.960 because if you can throw things on a train. It's 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:39.680 way cheaper and easier unless morally wrong. Yeah, for the 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:42.640 people who have who cared, I mean people who are 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:45.799 buying and selling slaves typically probably don't have a compunction 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:48.800 to worry about that. Yeah. A lot of people still 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:51.440 back in those days thought it was okay. Yeah, it 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:55.680 was standard fair. Um. So they're gonna build this railroad 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:59.520 and thousands of labors are brought in and they are 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:03.560 Indie in and Chinese. So yeah, there was it was 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:06.200 Indians and there was Chinese brought in. Um they were 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:08.599 they were all as a group. The British referred to 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:11.920 him as coolies. They were their labors. Um did the 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:14.280 Alliance have a preference for one group of the other, 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:19.560 Not that I know of. Um. So the railroad itself 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:22.560 was gonna be a total of five eighty miles long, 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:25.920 and when it was done it we had crossed valleys 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:29.960 and rivers. Crazy though it took thirty years to complete. 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:36.320 It started in eight It reached Nairobi in like Victoria 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:39.880 in nineteen o one, and then it took almost thirty 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:43.520 or twenty seven more years for it to eventually get 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:46.760 to Kampala, Uganda. That's a long time. Yeah, I think 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:49.680 that there was some political tensions going on. I think 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:52.080 that mostly it was and I don't mean political tensions 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:55.240 in the area, I mean political tensions in Britain in 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.280 the Parliament of why are we dumping more money into this? 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:01.080 So that's why I didn't it and get very well 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:06.000 funded at that point, So we're gonna go to This 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:09.239 is two years after the construction has begun. The rail 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:12.600 line has reached the Tsavo River in Kenya, which is 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:15.760 about a hundred and thirty miles away from Ambassa. Actually 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:18.440 pretty good progress. It actually is pretty good progress for 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:21.280 our rail line is being built by hand um And 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:22.679 what they have to do is they have to cross 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:25.400 a river, so they build a temporary bridge so that 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:28.440 they can keep working on the rail line, and then 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:31.160 in place of that temporary bridge, they pull it down 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:33.600 and they're going to start putting in the actual bridge 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:37.200 because right so, because why do you want to wait 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:39.000 all this time for the bridge to be done when 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:43.480 you can keep making forward? Progress makes total sense. So 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:46.520 what they do is in March of that year they 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:51.440 bring in British Army Colonel John Patterson UM and he's 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:54.840 brought in from India because he was evidently he was 0:08:55.160 --> 0:09:01.120 great with bridges and that was his thing at during 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:04.280 during the construction of the bridge, Like I said, the 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:06.160 they're gonna be building the bridge, and the rail line 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:09.520 itself is gonna keep moving forward the leading edge of 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:13.200 the line as they're constructing it. And this what happened 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:15.240 is that the camps, because the men who are working 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:17.440 on the line have to sleep at night, so they 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:20.920 set up temporary camps and their camps from the bridge forward, 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:24.480 over time starts spread out about over a twenty mile area, 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:29.160 so it's pretty big swath area. Well it's not, but 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:31.240 I think it's within a couple of days to a 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:38.960 week of Patterson arriving that men start disappearing. And I 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:42.600 was gonna say no. One immediately was like a crap, no, no, 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:45.600 because all of the workers come to him and say 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:49.160 they're being dragged out of their tents at night by 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:53.679 a lion, and he's like, no, that's not really happening. 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:58.720 I don't really believe you. Uh. And eventually he does 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:00.920 go with them. They find a bot. And I've read 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:04.599 the accounting of it, and if you from the description 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:07.640 of it, it was pretty obvious that it was a 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:09.679 big cat that must have been doing it. So at 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:13.400 that point he's on board, and eventually the workers would 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.800 figure out that there wasn't just one, but there was 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:20.200 actually two lions. Not to be racist, but how could 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:23.839 they tell with two different lions? Wait, okay, so you're 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:26.960 you're actually and you actually you actually praised it like 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:29.160 a joke, but it's an actual question. When you see 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:31.720 two lions at the same time, you know that there's 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:34.640 more than one. Okay, I mean, I guess I just 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:38.560 thought that male lions hunted alone. Apparently these these two 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:42.200 sort of had a had alliance their brothers. It was 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:45.160 later determined that they were brothers. But the thing is, 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:47.200 and we're going to talk a little bit more about 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:50.800 these kind of lions in just a moment, but males 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:54.760 will be with a pride of females, and if male 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:58.640 doesn't have a pride, then he's just gonna row. Sometimes 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:03.520 males will work together to hunt because it's mutually beneficial, 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:05.880 at least for a certain amount of time. So it's 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:09.360 not completely unheard of to have a couple of males 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:12.240 just kicking around at the same time together. Okay, it's 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:14.240 actually I would be really handy for having because I 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:16.679 mean just you know, like go spook some gazelles and 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:19.280 driving towards your bro you know. Well, I mean that's 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:22.160 why you know, wolves hunting packs, a lot of animals 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:24.440 hunting packs, because the big cats do it all the time, 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:28.600 except for usually not two males. No, no, but and 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:31.160 so let's let's go ahead and talk about this. Because 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:34.760 the lions that are in question here are Savo lions, 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:37.840 and they're different than the lions that I think most 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:40.319 people think of are familiar with, which is the lions 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:44.719 of the Serengetti. So there's there's some physical differences and 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:48.960 there's some behavioral differences. The bigger, for one thing, they are, 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:52.840 They are much bigger, and they also don't have mains. 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:55.880 So a normal you know, the Sengetti lion has that 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:59.560 big giant mane that's so iconic, but these lions don't. 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:04.200 And it's not understood why. There's some ideas that maybe 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:07.040 it's because of the fact that that region is hotter 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:10.839 than the Serengetti. Yeah, I think that is a reasonable Well, 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:14.199 that's a good reason. Um Or there's also the idea 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:18.040 that because the landscape in that area is very scrubby, 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:21.439 it's scrub brush, and it's very thorny scrub. So if 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:24.199 an animal is squeezing through brush, either the main is 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:27.080 gonna get caught or you're gonna get all kinds of 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:29.240 stuff caught. In the main, they have a little bit 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:31.760 of a main, so they have they do have scruff 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:34.320 occasionally if they have a main. I love that. I 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:36.880 was looking at a drawing and they show just in 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:39.200 front of the ears they then they literally call it 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:43.040 the side burn and the beard because it's it's almost 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:46.360 never fully encompassing or going all the way around the 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:49.240 neck like you see traditionally. But I guess these two 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:51.160 I was just looking at pictures. Did they had a 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:54.560 little little, tiny, very little bit of main. Well. And 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:56.600 that's the hard part though, is that if you look 0:12:56.679 --> 0:13:00.280 at the pictures of these particular lions in the I 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:04.320 can't remember what museum they're in right now, that those 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:08.479 are the skins of those lions after they were rugs 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:12.360 for about twenty years, so they weren't in great condition 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:14.240 when they were brought in. If you look at the 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:17.760 photos from after they were shot, it doesn't look like 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:20.400 there's a whole lot there then, but it's also not 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:23.559 they're old images. It's really hard to tell. Yeah, but 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:26.600 apparently they were skillfully restored and now they're they're stuff 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:28.920 that looked like the real thing they do, except they're smaller. 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:32.640 They're much smaller than they would be normally because of 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:35.240 the fact that they were skinned to make into rugs 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:40.320 and not to make into replicas exactly mannequins or whatever 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:42.320 you wanna call it. I can't think, Yeah, they had 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:45.960 trimmed away parts of the skins, but there's aren't they 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:52.080 in Chicago The Field Museum in um Chicago, Illinois. Thanks 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:54.280 looking up. I knew it was feel something I can 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:57.160 remember what it was. Um. Well, let's talk a little 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:00.079 bit more about Savo lions, though it's a cup of 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:02.280 things more to talk about here. We talked about the 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:05.720 fact that they're larger than the Serengetti lions, and it's 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:08.960 believed that that might be that they're actually a more 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:13.160 primitive version of the lion, because if you see apparently 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:15.559 if you look at the drawings from like the Egyptians, 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:18.000 because there was lions running around at two thousand years 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:20.920 ago in that region, they look the same. They don't 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:24.200 have a main and they're very large and the illustrations, 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:26.560 So that's one of the reasons. The other thing is 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:31.800 that these lions are not The males especially are notably 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:36.960 super aggressive because they have really high levels of testosterone, 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:42.040 so they are prone to their automatic reaction is to attack, 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:44.840 just because they're always kind of their dudes, they're totally 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:52.280 worked up all the time. I know that. Yeah, so um, 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:54.760 we'll go back to the story though. As I said, 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:58.520 the workers were spread over a large area again about 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:02.480 ten twenty miles, and the lions started to attack, and 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:05.840 they were attack primarily at night. They didn't show up 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:08.520 every night, so it wasn't as if it was every 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:11.520 single night they were there. Half a human is a 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:14.040 lot of meal. I would say human would make a 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:17.560 couple of days. The other thing, though, is that when 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:21.560 they showed up, they were much more likely to attack 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:25.200 the livestock as they were the people, because you gotta remember, 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:27.520 it's a camp of workers who have to have work 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:30.800 animals or draft animals, and they've also got to feed themselves, 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:35.480 so there's tons of livestock around, so it's whatever seemed 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:40.840 most convenient pickens whenever it was easy pickings. Yes, I 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:42.200 think if I was putting up my tent. If I 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:44.240 wasn't one of them workers, I would like stick goats 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:49.720 and cows all around it. Yeah. Well, you know, the 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:53.840 thing is is that they did. Everybody was trying to 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:58.200 keep the lions out. So what the coolies would do 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:01.600 is they would they would build fences. They were called 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:05.160 boma fences, and they would use the local acacia, which 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:08.640 is a super thorny tree and bush, and they build 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:10.440 fences out of that, so it's, you know, it's a 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:13.400 it's a barbed wire fence of nature at this point. 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:16.560 And they would also like big camp fires and keep 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:18.960 those fires going all night long in the hopes that 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:22.560 the sound and the light would keep the lions from 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:25.840 coming in. It didn't didn't work so well because the 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:30.000 lions kept getting through the fences and kept yeah, they 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:34.200 were there. Well, there's a there's a really interesting account 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:38.400 where a lion actually got into a tent where a 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:43.400 guy was sleeping, and in the scuffle and panic ended 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:46.840 up grabbing the mattress, the sleeping mattress the guy had 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:50.080 and running away with that. And so the guy got 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:52.000 away into lion got a couple of I'm guessing a 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:55.360 couple of yards, realized it didn't have its prey and 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:57.600 dropped it and continued. I feel like that might say 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:00.920 something bad about the state of the worker, that they 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:04.920 were easily mistaken for a mattress. Well, I think it's 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:08.080 in the dark, in a tent, in the scuffle with 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:12.000 the smells are your primary it's a sleeping pad that 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:16.080 you sleep on or a mattress. Things, Well, maybe it is. 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:19.520 I don't know. You're right, Okay, you're right. A mattress 0:17:19.560 --> 0:17:23.320 and a human are interchangeable. They are. That's why I 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:25.520 have one sitting in my cube right now at the office. 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:30.760 Everybody thinks I'm working diligently, wait till they realize it's 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:35.440 sorta all right. So April of that year, um. At 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:38.800 this point, Paterson has been there for about a month 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.959 or so, and now the rail line is extended forty 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:46.280 miles away from the Tsavo, and there's only a couple 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:49.560 of hundred workers left at the camp who are building 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:53.600 the bridge. And because this is where, you know, the 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:56.879 bulk of the humans have moved on, and the camp 0:17:56.960 --> 0:18:00.040 is around the bridge, that's where the lions start to 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:06.440 focus their attacks exactly. And so Patterson he he um. 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:08.480 So he was brought in from India, where he had 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:10.720 done a whole bunch of lion or not lion but 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:14.399 tiger hunting, and so he considered himself a hunter of 0:18:14.480 --> 0:18:17.240 big cats. What he would do is he would climb 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:18.960 a tree at night and he would sit in the 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:23.520 tree all night long hoping that he could spot and 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:27.280 then shoot one of the lions. Obviously, he didn't have 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:30.320 a whole lot of luck with it. The you know, 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:32.640 he's in a tree. One night, the lions show up, 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:37.160 They get into the hospital tent and they take somebody away. 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:41.239 So he says, move the move the hospital tent. So 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:45.080 they do. The lion goes to the new location of 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:48.439 the hospital tent and take somebody else away. I think 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:51.639 it was the water boy. Um takes him away. So 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:53.560 then they do it a third time. They moved the 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:56.040 tent a third time, and I'm like, why is he doing? 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:59.280 Does he not realize that lions can smell? Like, why 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:03.760 are you moving it? Yea, they're not stupid, but these 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:05.560 ones particularly, And what he did this time when he 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:07.600 moved to hospital to the third time, as he put 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:11.199 up this rail car contraction that he had designed and 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:14.000 had cattle in it, and the idea I think was 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:17.480 that to get the lion in, shut the door so 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:20.280 the lion couldn't get out, and then you could, you know, 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:23.480 shooting fish in a barrel, lions in a car kind 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:26.440 of the same thing for him, except it didn't work out. 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:29.320 The lion got a cow, got in, got the cow, 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:31.760 got it out of the car, but then couldn't figure 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:33.639 out how to get it through the fence, and eventually 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:38.000 took off through the fence. So when the thing I 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:41.200 guess what happened though, is that Patterson and the camp doctor, 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:43.920 because it was near where the hospital site was, were 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:46.600 out there at night, and the lion at that point, 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:50.359 instead of trying to continue to drag the cow out 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:56.520 of the fence, turned around and started stalking these two guys. Yeah. Yeah, 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:59.200 So obviously it's very aggressive. When I have just killed something, 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:01.320 I can't get it, I'm gonna kill something else. I'm 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:04.520 still hungry. I'm I'm totally still hungry. Um. So it 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:07.680 did eventually attempt to attack them, and this is where 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:11.439 Patterson shot at it, and he said he managed to 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:14.159 wound it by shooting one of its teeth, and that 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:18.359 scared it away enough and the whole tooth thing is 0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:22.520 supported with the actual jaw of one of the lions. 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:26.639 There is a broken tooth. Now, whether that tooth was 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:30.640 shot by him or broken in some other manner, that's 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:34.320 that's in dispute. But it seems weird. It seems like 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:37.720 a hell of a lucky shot. Well, it seems it 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:39.800 would kill the lion shoot him in the head basically, 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:41.800 Well not if you shoot it from the side or 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:44.280 from it or you know, or if it goes out. 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:47.280 Think of if it went through the cheek. Yeah, I 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:49.640 suppose it could have been deflected. Yeah, I mean, there's 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:52.440 there's a bunch of ways that this could happen either way. 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:54.520 Like I said, I don't I think that mostly it 0:20:54.520 --> 0:20:56.200 was right there and he shot it, scared the holy 0:20:56.480 --> 0:20:58.400 crap at him, and it took off. But that's that's 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:00.840 just my opinion. So of core. Okay, so we've got 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:03.360 the whole He shot at the mouth. The lions then 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:06.280 take off for a while, and they leave the camp 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:09.399 for several weeks, and I'm sure Patterson is just relieved 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:11.600 and thinking, well, yeah, I got rid of them. Scared 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:14.640 him off, I did it. Yeah, unbeknownst that's what British 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:19.040 accents sound like. Right, yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um. 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:22.800 Unbeknownst to him, what the lions had been doing during 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:26.000 that couple of weeks was actually stalking um some of 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:29.600 the other construction camps that were farther away. And they 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:32.400 do eventually return to the bridge site. This is several 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:36.280 weeks later. One of the cats enters and drags a 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:39.680 worker away, and these and and both of them show 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:41.399 up to the body of this worker. And this is 0:21:41.400 --> 0:21:44.119 how brazen they get. After a while, they only dragged 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:47.160 the body thirty feet away from the thirty yards away 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:50.520 from the camp and then begin to have their meal. 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:55.520 So they're obviously not intimidated by people, which at this 0:21:55.560 --> 0:21:58.479 point I'd be thinking of a career change. Yeah, me too. 0:21:58.640 --> 0:22:02.080 I wouldn't. I wouldn't be there, No, not at all. 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:05.639 And and so this this continues for months. These lions 0:22:05.680 --> 0:22:08.040 can keep coming back and they keep making a kill 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:11.280 and taking something, whether it be human or a four 0:22:11.359 --> 0:22:15.280 legged critter away as a meal. We get to the 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:18.320 first of December and at this point most of the 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:21.000 workers board the train and they leave. They've they've kind 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:24.080 of had enough that there's just this is not worth it, 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:28.119 and they're gone. There's some people yeah, yeah, it makes sense. 0:22:28.440 --> 0:22:30.480 There's some people left, there's some workers who are going 0:22:30.520 --> 0:22:33.640 to try and stay on. On the ninth of December, 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:37.920 one of the lions manages to kill a donkey that's 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:41.520 in camp, and Patterson sees this is his opportunity. And 0:22:41.520 --> 0:22:43.359 what he does is he has a bunch of guys 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:46.320 go around behind it and then come at it, making 0:22:46.359 --> 0:22:49.040 as much noise as they can to startle it, to 0:22:49.280 --> 0:22:51.720 scare it out into the open so that he can, 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:55.879 you know, shoot it. Well, he does manage to hit it. 0:22:55.920 --> 0:22:59.160 He does manage to wound the lion, but it gets away, 0:22:59.560 --> 0:23:01.240 but he's pretty sure that it's going to come back 0:23:01.280 --> 0:23:05.080