.J. Spooner and Mr C. Rawson for their
kindness in allowing me to reproduce photographs taken by them. My
warmest thanks are also due to that veteran pioneer of Africa, Mr. F.C.
Selous, for giving my little book so kindly an introduction to the
public as is provided by the "Foreword" which he has been good enough
to write.

J.H.P. August, 1907.

FOREWORD

It was some seven or eight years ago that I first read, in the pages of
The Field newspaper, a brief account written by Col. J.H. Patterson,
then an engineer engaged on the construction of the Uganda Railway, of
the Tsavo man-eating lions.

My own long experience of African hunting told me at once that every
word in this thrilling narrative was absolutely true. Nay more: I knew
that the author had told his story in a most modest manner, laying but
little stress on the dangers he had run when sitting up at nights to
try and compass the death of the terrible man-eaters, especially on
that one occasion when whilst watching from a very light scaffolding,
supported only by four rickety poles, he was himself stalked by one of
the dread beasts. Fortunately he did not lose his nerve, and succeeded
in shooting the lion, just when it was on the point of springing upon
him. But had this lion approached him from behind, I think it would
probably have added Col. Patterson to its long list of victims, for in
my own experience I have known of three instances of men having been
pulled from trees or huts built on platforms at a greater height from
the ground than the crazy structure on which Col. Patterson was
watching on that night of terrors.

From the time of Herodotus until to-day, lion stories innumerable have
been told and written. I have put some on record myself. But no lion
story I have ever heard or read equals in its long-sustained and
dramatic interest the story of the Tsavo man-eaters as told by Col.
Patterson. A lion story is usually a tale of adventures, often very
terrible and pathetic, which occupied but a few hours of one night; but
the tale of the Tsavo man-eaters is an epic of terrible tragedies
spread out over several months, and only at last brought to an end by
the resource and determination of one man.

It was some years after I read the first account published of the Tsavo
man-eaters that I made the acquaintance of President Roosevelt. I told
him all I remembered about it, and he was so deeply interested in the
story--as he is in all true stor