AY CARRIAGE

Towards the end of my stay in British East Africa, I dined one evening
with Mr. Ryall, the Superintendent of the Police, in his inspection
carriage on the railway. Poor Ryall! I little thought then what a
terrible fate was to overtake him only a few months later in that very
carriage in which we dined.

A man-eating lion had taken up his quarters at a little roadside
station called Kimaa, and had developed an extraordinary taste for the
members of the railway staff. He was a most daring brute, quite
indifferent as to whether he carried off the station-master, the
signalman, or the pointsman; and one night, in his efforts to obtain a
meal, he actually climbed up on to the roof of the station buildings
and tried to tear off the corrugated-iron sheets. At this the terrified
baboo in charge of the telegraph instrument below sent the following
laconic message to the Traffic Manager: "Lion fighting with station.
Send urgent succour." Fortunately he was not victorious in his "fight
with the station"; but he tried so hard to get in that he cut his feet
badly on the iron sheeting, leaving large blood-stains on the roof.
Another night, however, he succeeded in carrying off the native driver
of the pumping-engine, and soon afterwards added several other victims
to his list. On one occasion an engine-driver arranged to sit up all
night in a large iron water-tank in the hope of getting a shot at him,
and had a loop-hole cut in the side of the tank from which to fire. But
as so often happens, the hunter became the hunted; the lion turned up
in the middle of the night, overthrew the tank and actually tried to
drag the driver out through the narrow circular hole in the top through
which he had squeezed in. Fortunately the tank was just too deep for
the brute to be able to reach the man at the bottom; but the latter was
naturally half paralysed with fear and had to crouch so low down as to
be unable to take anything like proper aim. He fired, however, and
succeeded in frightening the lion away for the time being.

It was in a vain attempt to destroy this pest that poor Ryall met his
tragic and untimely end. On June 6, 1900, he was travelling up in his
inspection carriage from Makindu to Nairobi, accompanied by two
friends, Mr. Huebner and Mr. Parenti. When they reached Kimaa, which is
about two hundred and fifty miles from Mombasa, they were told that the
man-eater had been seen close to the station only a short time be