transcript
Speaker 1:
[00:00] Hey, you weirdos, I'm Ash.
Speaker 2:
[00:01] And I'm Alaina.
Speaker 1:
[00:02] And this is a podcast called Morbid.
Speaker 2:
[00:18] Have you heard of it? I've heard of it. You have, because you're here. It's been my livelihood for a few years. It's true, for a few years, a handful.
Speaker 1:
[00:24] A handful of years.
Speaker 2:
[00:25] Yeah, actually, it's been quite a few years.
Speaker 1:
[00:27] It's been almost a decade. This is my longest job that I've had.
Speaker 2:
[00:30] Whoa.
Speaker 1:
[00:31] I know. I mean, I was a youth when we started this. I listened to, first of all, if you just started listening to Morbid and you caught up like super duper fast, thank you so much, because in the early episodes, I sound like I don't give a shit about anything. I saw, I was just like, yeah, how was that work today? And like, blah, blah, blah. And this happened.
Speaker 2:
[00:52] You loved that.
Speaker 1:
[00:53] Eww.
Speaker 2:
[00:54] No, it worked.
Speaker 1:
[00:55] I know, the people stayed. It must have been for you at that point.
Speaker 2:
[00:59] If you stayed, probably not. If you stayed. If you stayed. Let's face reality. I said, uh-uh.
Speaker 1:
[01:08] I don't know what it was. It was our charm, I guess.
Speaker 2:
[01:10] If you stayed, you're a real one.
Speaker 1:
[01:12] You're the realest one. I care. I always did, but now I sound like it.
Speaker 2:
[01:16] It really, really hits when we listen to the older episodes, how much you just hung in there and what we put you through.
Speaker 1:
[01:25] It is crazy that it will be a decade and not that many years. That's nuts. It's crazy. I know. We'll have to do something fun or something.
Speaker 2:
[01:33] It feels like we're finally in, we're back to the early days. The fun part again.
Speaker 1:
[01:40] Yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 2:
[01:41] We had a little middle part there.
Speaker 1:
[01:43] We had a fucking journey, which was a journey, you guys know. I lost years off my life, but I'm gaining them back right now.
Speaker 2:
[01:49] I'm learning how to regulate my nervous system again, which is a really fun thing.
Speaker 1:
[01:54] I actually was just saying, I wish that I could do, I've said this so many times, but now I can even tell you even more why. I wish I could do my wedding again because my cortisol face at my wedding.
Speaker 2:
[02:05] I think you looked phenomenal.
Speaker 1:
[02:06] Thank you.
Speaker 2:
[02:06] I did.
Speaker 1:
[02:07] I looked gorgeous.
Speaker 2:
[02:08] Good for you.
Speaker 1:
[02:08] So fuck y'all. But I still wish I could do it again because I think I would have even enjoyed it that much more, especially the planning process.
Speaker 2:
[02:15] Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:
[02:16] Because it was just...
Speaker 2:
[02:18] Because there was a lot going on.
Speaker 1:
[02:19] There was so much going on. It was a mini disaster every day.
Speaker 2:
[02:21] There was like family things going on too.
Speaker 1:
[02:24] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[02:25] And then there was like work things that were literally constantly going on.
Speaker 1:
[02:31] So that was a lot. I'm pretty sure the day of my wedding, a podcast came out. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[02:38] Because we weren't...
Speaker 1:
[02:38] No time off.
Speaker 2:
[02:39] Because no time off. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[02:42] Just reminiscing.
Speaker 2:
[02:44] No time off, no creative control.
Speaker 1:
[02:47] Just nothing.
Speaker 2:
[02:49] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[02:49] But you know what?
Speaker 2:
[02:50] That's in the past.
Speaker 1:
[02:52] And now we're doing things like playing Radio City fucking musical.
Speaker 2:
[02:56] Which you guys got to come. We still have a few tickets left.
Speaker 1:
[03:00] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[03:00] We got some tickets left.
Speaker 1:
[03:02] One time only. I literally just got my TAP shoes delivered the other day.
Speaker 2:
[03:07] And we're really brainstorming some really cool ideas. And we have one in particular that we're hoping is going to happen. And I'm excited about it.
Speaker 1:
[03:15] Oh, yes. If that happens, that thing that we can't say right now, I'll shit my pants. Go get your tickets.
Speaker 2:
[03:21] It's going to be fun.
Speaker 1:
[03:22] It's going to be lit.
Speaker 2:
[03:23] It's going to be theme-y. And it's going to be a real good time. And it's one time only. And we only have some tickets left. So grab them.
Speaker 1:
[03:29] Remember to get them at Ticketmaster only.
Speaker 2:
[03:31] Yes, because those are the ones we said, yeah.
Speaker 1:
[03:33] We said, yeah, sounds good.
Speaker 2:
[03:35] It's going to be a lot of fun. I can't wait.
Speaker 1:
[03:37] Ah, jinx. You owe me a Coke.
Speaker 2:
[03:40] But you know what?
Speaker 1:
[03:41] You already bought me a Coke today.
Speaker 2:
[03:42] Oh, yeah, I did.
Speaker 1:
[03:43] So we're good. It's retroactive, paid back.
Speaker 2:
[03:45] I like it.
Speaker 1:
[03:45] All right, what's up, girl? Oh, wait.
Speaker 2:
[03:48] Tomorrow also, stay tuned.
Speaker 1:
[03:51] Fun bonus episode coming up.
Speaker 2:
[03:53] For a fun fucking bonus episode, one that I think you guys are going to be pretty excited about. I don't know what it's about or anything, but I think you guys.
Speaker 1:
[04:02] When the full moon turns red, that's when I'll go home. Just leave that in.
Speaker 2:
[04:12] So stay tuned for that.
Speaker 1:
[04:13] That's an Easter egg. Everyone's like, bitch, do you know what an Easter egg is? They're like, that's an Easter dump.
Speaker 2:
[04:19] See if you can dissect that Taylor Swift level.
Speaker 1:
[04:26] That little marketing genius over here. Check it.
Speaker 2:
[04:29] Listen to that.
Speaker 1:
[04:31] Listen to that. Check that out.
Speaker 2:
[04:34] And also go take a peek at my social media because there's some fun book stuff happening tomorrow. So go set your alarm.
Speaker 1:
[04:43] Go check it out.
Speaker 2:
[04:43] For what time? I don't know. Tomorrow.
Speaker 1:
[04:46] Oh, okay. For 12 a.m. tonight.
Speaker 2:
[04:48] Got it.
Speaker 1:
[04:50] I don't know.
Speaker 2:
[04:51] So head on over tomorrow. Head on over tomorrow to my Instagram page and I'll tell you.
Speaker 1:
[04:57] All day only. Okay.
Speaker 2:
[04:58] All day only. So get over there. So yeah. So that's all the biz nasty I think we had to talk about. Yes, girl. So what are we going to talk about today?
Speaker 1:
[05:08] I don't know.
Speaker 2:
[05:08] It's your case. I'll tell you because it's my case.
Speaker 1:
[05:11] People are like, what the fuck are you guys on? So we're on, we had McDonald's today.
Speaker 2:
[05:15] We did and we took a walk.
Speaker 1:
[05:16] We took a walk and it lit up different parts of our brain.
Speaker 2:
[05:19] At one point, I just looked at everyone and I said, this has been a great day, guys. Yeah, it has been. Here we are. Now we're going to get a little gnarly though. Oh, did you say something about lions? Yeah, I sure did. Lions. So this is a little different because we know when I talked to you guys about the shark attacks in Joy-Z.
Speaker 1:
[05:40] You liked that.
Speaker 2:
[05:40] You guys were like, that was pretty interesting.
Speaker 1:
[05:43] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[05:43] And then some people said, more animal attacks, please. And I said, OK. And then Dave said, got it. He said, what about this one?
Speaker 1:
[05:53] Dave said, say less.
Speaker 2:
[05:54] He did. So we're going to talk about the Man-Eaters of Tsavo today. What? That's right. You heard that right. I've never heard of that. So this one's wild.
Speaker 1:
[06:05] I bet.
Speaker 2:
[06:06] This one's gruesome. It does have trigger warning. There are animal deaths in it. And I'm just going to say it right now that I wish the I don't wish any human being to get hurt or mauled by an animal. But I do wish the animals just got to kind of go off and live their lives. I know. And just kind of go away. You know? Yeah. That's just how I feel. Let's begin. In the spring of 1898. Oh, fuck. We're going way back.
Speaker 1:
[06:33] Let's go back. I wasn't even there.
Speaker 2:
[06:35] Colonel James Patterson arrived in East Africa to take up a position leading the construction staff on the Uganda Railroad, which was a very big infrastructure project based in Kilindini, Kenya.
Speaker 1:
[06:50] OK.
Speaker 2:
[06:50] I hope I said that correct. I looked up many pronunciations. As one of the main waterways between Europe, the Middle East and Africa, this whole region had been steeped in wars between competing interests, trying to gain control. But by that point, it was the British who held majority control and had set the project forth, set it into motion. And they were really kind of largely relying on local labor managed by British officials.
Speaker 1:
[07:17] OK.
Speaker 2:
[07:17] So after spending a week waiting on his orders, Patterson finally received a letter that told him he was going to go travel about 150 miles inland to a region called Tsavo, which is a combo word meaning place of slaughter.
Speaker 1:
[07:33] Don't go there, baby.
Speaker 2:
[07:34] I said, whoa. Why would you name it that? Because apparently there had been so many wars and like battles and things that had happened on this land. So he was going to go there to take command of a crew that was going to build a large railroad bridge over the Tsavo River. Like much of Kenya at this time, Tsavo was really dry. It was really arid. There was rivers and streams cutting through various sections of it. And in addition to the large population of Kenyans living in the area, it also was home to a very diverse population of wildlife.
Speaker 1:
[08:08] I love that.
Speaker 2:
[08:09] Yeah, this was bush elephants, giraffe, buffalo, hyena, jackal, rhinoceroses.
Speaker 1:
[08:15] Rhinoceri?
Speaker 2:
[08:16] Rhinoceros, I think it might be.
Speaker 1:
[08:18] Rhinoceroses.
Speaker 2:
[08:20] Is it rhinoceros? I think it is rhinoceros.
Speaker 1:
[08:22] You do?
Speaker 2:
[08:23] I don't know. Wow. I'm going to look it up though.
Speaker 1:
[08:25] You should.
Speaker 2:
[08:26] Rhinocer... Let's get smarter. I like getting smarter. Let's get smarter.
Speaker 1:
[08:30] My brain is lit up.
Speaker 2:
[08:32] It's plural.
Speaker 1:
[08:33] Rhinocero?
Speaker 2:
[08:34] I did not spell plural.
Speaker 1:
[08:37] It's okay.
Speaker 2:
[08:38] The plural is either rhinoceroses or rhinoceros.
Speaker 1:
[08:43] I like rhinoceros better.
Speaker 2:
[08:44] It kind of feels nice.
Speaker 1:
[08:45] It does.
Speaker 2:
[08:46] It's got a nice mouth feel, that word.
Speaker 1:
[08:47] It rolls off the tongue. I love elephants.
Speaker 2:
[08:50] Me too.
Speaker 1:
[08:50] I would lay down my life for elephants.
Speaker 2:
[08:53] I also love elephants. My youngest just got a stuffed elephant that she made.
Speaker 1:
[08:59] And she named her.
Speaker 2:
[09:00] And she named them Ewy.
Speaker 1:
[09:02] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[09:02] And said, sometimes they're boys, sometimes they're a girl. And I said, okay, non-binary king and queen. I said, iconic Ewy. And it's not Ellie.
Speaker 1:
[09:11] Ewy. And that's not even due to any kind of speech impediment.
Speaker 2:
[09:14] No.
Speaker 1:
[09:15] That's just a straight up name.
Speaker 2:
[09:16] That's it.
Speaker 1:
[09:16] They're a straight up name.
Speaker 2:
[09:18] Don't get it twisted.
Speaker 1:
[09:18] No.
Speaker 2:
[09:20] So there's that. So while many of the species living in the region did pose a threat to humans, there were definitely not a lot that were as fierce and as dangerous as the Maneless Lion.
Speaker 1:
[09:35] Maneless Lion, you say.
Speaker 2:
[09:37] So this is a subspecies of big cat that evolved without the large fluffy mane.
Speaker 1:
[09:43] So now they feel like they have something to make up for.
Speaker 2:
[09:45] Well, here's the thing. They evolved without the large fluffy mane because it allows them to better survive the heat of the desert. Oh. So they actually like-
Speaker 1:
[09:53] That's interesting.
Speaker 2:
[09:54] Have a little bit of a leg up.
Speaker 1:
[09:55] Yeah, that's really cool, actually.
Speaker 2:
[09:56] And I think it makes them less floofy looking. Cause like when I see a big old lion with a big old mane, I'm like, oh, gotta touch it. And I know I can't. I know I can't and I won't.
Speaker 1:
[10:10] How often are you running into lions?
Speaker 2:
[10:12] And when I see one at like a zoo or something.
Speaker 1:
[10:14] Every day that I see a lion.
Speaker 2:
[10:16] Yeah, every time I just run into one. But if I see one on like TV, I'm like, oh, touch that. Like, I just want to pet it, you know? I love you. You know what I mean? Cause it's that floofy mane.
Speaker 1:
[10:27] No, I get it.
Speaker 2:
[10:28] It just makes them look so floofy.
Speaker 1:
[10:29] Those are the boys, the girls don't have that.
Speaker 2:
[10:31] Yeah, you just want to boop, boop their suit. No, don't ever boop a lion's suit. You run into a lion do not boop the snoot.
Speaker 1:
[10:39] Unless you're familiar with that lion and like you have a bond.
Speaker 2:
[10:42] And you've booped the snoot before, cause I'm not here to tell you to boop any snoots.
Speaker 1:
[10:46] Never boop a snoot for the first time.
Speaker 2:
[10:48] Yeah, consent. If you're not familiar with that lion. But these are maneless, so they, to me, look a little more villainous, to be quite honest.
Speaker 1:
[10:56] Okay.
Speaker 2:
[10:57] Without a mane, it's like, you're just a scary ass cat.
Speaker 1:
[10:59] Well, that's like the ladies, and the ladies actually are more fierce.
Speaker 2:
[11:02] They're badass.
Speaker 1:
[11:03] I learned a lot about lions last time I went to Disney.
Speaker 2:
[11:05] I love that for you.
Speaker 1:
[11:06] Thank you.
Speaker 2:
[11:07] So, establishing a path through the dense jungle to get to this area where they were going to do construction was not an easy task.
Speaker 1:
[11:15] Because you're not supposed to go there, probably.
Speaker 2:
[11:16] You're not. We're really not. The jungle in Tsavo was densely forested. It was overgrown. It was filled with like snarled plant life, which included a species of like a, this like species of plant that has like a variety of different species that are covered in large hooked thorns. And they're called weight a bit thorns.
Speaker 1:
[11:36] Wait a bit.
Speaker 2:
[11:36] Wait a bit.
Speaker 1:
[11:37] Wait a bit before you come up on this area.
Speaker 2:
[11:39] Yeah. Or it's like, you're going to get stuck in these thorns and then you're going to wait a bit to get out. So in that first week, much of Patterson's time was spent getting to know the area, just kind of familiarizing himself with the work, the crew, what was going to be happening. And this obviously wasn't like super manually intensive. This wasn't like the labor that they were going to do. Yeah. It was still physically taxing. And each night, Patterson looked forward to going to sleep in the tent. He was like, this has been a long day.
Speaker 1:
[12:04] I look forward to going to sleep in my bed every day without doing much.
Speaker 2:
[12:08] And if you got a tent, why not?
Speaker 1:
[12:10] Never have I ever looked forward to sleeping in a tent.
Speaker 2:
[12:12] No.
Speaker 1:
[12:13] Never have I ever slept in a tent.
Speaker 2:
[12:14] There you go. But he would be exhausted, he said, every single night. But he wrote in a journal, he kept a journal of everything. So he wrote, I little knew then what adventures awaited me in this neighborhood. And if I had realized that at the time two savage brutes were prowling around seeking whom they might devour, I hardly think I would have slept so peacefully in my rickety shelter.
Speaker 1:
[12:35] What prose.
Speaker 2:
[12:36] Right? So as soon as he'd arrived in the camp, Patterson began hearing stories of men disappearing from camps in the area. Not what you want to hear upon settling. Upon arriving. At first, he was like, okay, whatever. Maybe they're just like legends, you know, people love to talk shit. Like, they're just trying to get me scared. You know, we all love it. But after a few days, it became kind of impossible to ignore the increasingly credible tales. He said, all the old caravan leaders had disliked this camp for one reason or another, and it was a noted place for desertions. And in fact, very few of the caravan seemed to make it through the area without losing one or two of their porters. To the other men, the leaders of the caravan would usually provide some kind of like whatever answer, something about how the men had simply deserted them in the night and joined an easier route. That's why they're not here. But few of the remaining members of the caravan found that to be reasonable at all, because who's going to work hard for several weeks only to abandon their camp and their belongings in the middle of the night? Fair. Like you're busting your ass for weeks at a time just to like peace out and leave everything. So a few weeks into the construction project, the crew had finally reached the west side of the Tsavo River. When Patterson first heard that one of his crew had disappeared the night before. Uh-oh. Several others on the crew cited the stories of the other men who'd gone missing and insisted the missing worker had been carried off in the night by a lion.
Speaker 1:
[14:07] No, thank you.
Speaker 2:
[14:08] Patterson said, at the time, I did not credit this story and was more inclined to believe that the unfortunate man had been the victim of foul play at the hands of some of his conrads. But nevertheless, workmen were a valuable resource, so Patterson immediately assembled a group of people to go search for him. It didn't take long before his mind was changed. In speaking with the other men who shared a tent with the missing man, Patterson found one worker who witnessed the attack.
Speaker 1:
[14:35] Oh, fuck.
Speaker 2:
[14:36] It was around midnight, this guy said, and he said when a large, maneless lion poked its head through the flaps of the fucking tent.
Speaker 1:
[14:45] Said, anybody in here?
Speaker 2:
[14:47] And he quickly scanned the interior of the tent and saw that there were definitely people in there and grabbed the nearest worker. His name was Ungen Singh, and he grabbed him by the throat. Oh. So Singh cried out, Koro, which means let go, and wrapped his arm around the lion's neck, trying to get him to release him, but the lion's grip was too tight, and the other men in the tent, just all they could do was watch in horror as their literal friend and co-worker was dragged into the darkness screaming for his life. Oh my God. So Patterson and the other men in the search party grabbed their rifles and went to investigate the area outside of Singh's tent. And they found large paw prints in the sand and deep gashes in the earth which showed them what direction that he was being dragged away. And he said, we founded an easy matter to follow the route, taken by the lion, as he appeared to have stopped several times before beginning his meal. Oh. The areas where the lion appeared to have paused were accompanied by pools of blood each larger than the last.
Speaker 1:
[15:51] Oh my god.
Speaker 2:
[15:52] Finally less than a mile from the tent, they found Singh's body. It was, they said it was unimaginable horror.
Speaker 1:
[16:00] That's yeah.
Speaker 2:
[16:01] His body appeared to have been completely ripped apart, with the flesh torn from all but his head and feet. Patterson wrote the ground all around was covered with blood and morsels of flesh and bones. But Singh's head had been left intact, the eyes staring wide open with a startled, horrified look in them.
Speaker 1:
[16:23] Oh my god.
Speaker 2:
[16:24] All around the body were paw prints, similar to those found along the bloody path that led from the tent to the body, but similar, but they weren't all the same. And as they looked at the prints, it occurred to them that those were two distinct set of prints in the dirt, indicating that one lion definitely pulled him from the tent, but he had been killed and eaten by at least two.
Speaker 1:
[16:45] Oh my.
Speaker 2:
[16:47] Yeah. Patterson wrote, I've witnessed many an accident with fatal consequences, but the sight of this skeleton from which the flesh had been ravenously torn was one of the most gruesome spectacles imaginable.
Speaker 1:
[16:58] Also imagine you're standing there, like, taking that-
Speaker 2:
[17:01] Sitting duck.
Speaker 1:
[17:02] But that's the thing. Exactly. You're sitting there, where that group of lions or pair of lions just had a meal. Where the fuck are they now?
Speaker 2:
[17:10] Yeah. That's the thing. Like, they're not far watching.
Speaker 1:
[17:12] Oh, that's horrifying.
Speaker 2:
[17:14] Now, in his mind, Patterson began thinking about all the stories he had heard about men going missing from caravans in the Tsavo region. He was like, oh shit, is this the same group of lions that are responsible for those attacks? It seemed impossible because animal attacks didn't, they happened from time to time, but they were still exceedingly rare. They still are. Since most animals wanted nothing to do with humans who were just encroaching on their territory at this point. Now, at the river bank, the men gathered up Singh's remains as best as they could, and they buried them in the sandy ground. They piled stones on it, it has kind of like a grave marker. His head they placed in a burlap sack and brought back to camp in order to provide an identification to the medical officer.
Speaker 1:
[17:58] Oh, wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[18:00] The next day, they returned to the area heavily armed, but there was no sign of the lions that had killed Singh. But to their horror, as they searched the area, they found a lot of evidence of other attacks. There were skulls and parts of skeletons littering the area.
Speaker 1:
[18:17] What the fuck?
Speaker 2:
[18:18] He had definitely not been the first victim, and he was likely not going to be the last.
Speaker 1:
[18:23] You guys got to get out of there.
Speaker 2:
[18:25] So that night, the workmen were uneasy in their tents. They were scared to sleep, and they were like, they could just be lurking right outside our tent, just waiting to pounce.
Speaker 1:
[18:36] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[18:36] James Patterson, on the other hand, took up a position in a near tree to the tent. I don't blame him. And it was near the tent that Singh was taken out of.
Speaker 1:
[18:44] But then you got to think of all the animals that can climb trees.
Speaker 2:
[18:47] Patterson is wild because he's like the lead here. He's supposed to be like heading up this thing. He does take lead. He puts himself in positions to try to protect his crew. So he's up in a tree and he said, if one of the lions returned that night, he was going to defend the camp and he was going to kill it. Several hours passed with no sight or sound of lions anywhere near the camp. So he was beginning to think, okay, he's not going to come back tonight. When out of nowhere, he heard, quote, a great uproar and frenzied cries coming from another camp about a half a mile away. The men at Patterson's camp knew they wouldn't be able to reach the camp in time to be of any use. And even if they were able to get there, none of them were really confident that they could fend off or fight off a man-eating lion.
Speaker 1:
[19:32] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[19:32] The best they could do was find some comfort in the fact that at least for tonight, they weren't going to see the lion. Yeah. Like, what a shitty leak. They're just like, I guess we can go to sleep. Yeah. So the next morning, the news reached his camp of the previous night's commotion, and it was what he had thought. Another of his workers at the railroad head camp had been ripped away from his tent by a lion in the middle of the night. That evening, Patterson took up a new position in a tree near the railhead camp and waited in the pouring rain for any sign of stocking lines. Just like the night before, several hours passed and he was soaked. He's like freezing, soaked to the bone. He's about to climb down from his position when he heard quote, a heart-rending shriek indicating that there had been another attack. This time at a camp about a half a mile from the railhead. Okay. What we're going to see is that the lions are fucking smart. Okay. It's like they know. Every time he moves to another one, they move away or they'll go to the other one that he was just not at. It's like really crazy. It's like weird intelligence. Now, when the construction project began, the workmen were assigned to one of several camps scattered within an eight-mile stretch along the river. Lions are known to travel up to 12 miles a day to find food.
Speaker 1:
[20:54] Wow.
Speaker 2:
[20:55] That meant any of the men in any of the camps along the Tsavo River could be prey. There was no way to know which camp the lions were going to hit. It was like whack-a-mole.
Speaker 1:
[21:07] Yeah. I just actually googled it and lions are considered the most intelligent of big cats.
Speaker 2:
[21:11] That makes sense because they're intelligent in this situation. It's like they were watching and they would just adjust their plans.
Speaker 1:
[21:22] This actually says they excel at cooperative hunting, complex problem-solving, and observational learning.
Speaker 2:
[21:28] Boom. They were literally observing and watching and learning.
Speaker 1:
[21:32] Solve puzzles, remember solutions for months, and they possess larger frontal cortex regions, which is crucial for managing complex social bonds.
Speaker 2:
[21:42] That makes so much sense.
Speaker 1:
[21:42] That's actually very fascinating.
Speaker 2:
[21:44] Because I always think a lion pride is so interesting. I always think groups of animals and how they function are really, really interesting. Elephants are very intelligent too, and they're very emotionally intelligent.
Speaker 1:
[21:55] Elephants have straight up funerals.
Speaker 2:
[21:58] Their communities are so interesting. I could learn about that stuff for like ever. I love animals. I think it's so interesting, and I don't think we give them enough credit for how.
Speaker 1:
[22:08] We're so self-centered.
Speaker 2:
[22:10] Like us they are, but better than us they are in so many ways. At first, Patterson spent night after night just cycling between the camps with a rifle, taking up positions in makeshift hunting blinds, searching the landscape for any signs, just trying to keep his workers safe. The men also successfully petitioned to consolidate the camps as best they could, just to try to keep them from being so spread out. They built a barrier around themselves, winding the plants with weight-a-bit thorns and around the perimeter for extra protection.
Speaker 1:
[22:43] All right, that was smart.
Speaker 2:
[22:45] Unfortunately, however, sensible, these efforts really didn't have a lot of effect on the two lions. They didn't give a.
Speaker 1:
[22:53] You have to think they've lived there forever, so they can adapt to those kinds of things.
Speaker 2:
[22:57] They're hungry, so. And Patterson wrote, They almost appeared to have an extraordinary and uncanny faculty of finding out our plans beforehand. Which is exactly what we were just talking about. Now, in fact, whenever the men would put up an extra protection in one camp, or whichever camp Patterson chose to monitor, the lions seemed to instinctually know to stay away, and would instead choose to attack another camp. Knowing that they couldn't possibly protect every camp equally every single night, Patterson began laying simple traps for the animals. Sometimes he would use livestock as bait at the perimeter of the camp, hoping the animal would attract the lions. Other times he would lace the corpses of animals with strychnine and other poisons. Brother. Just hoping that they would eat it and die, essentially. You can see why they're going to these lengths. Yeah. Men are dying and they're obviously, like we'll see, they're getting very brazen.
Speaker 1:
[23:55] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[23:56] But I want you to know that at the end of this, you're going to find out why they're being so brazen, and it might make you think a little differently about it.
Speaker 1:
[24:02] Were they really hungry?
Speaker 2:
[24:03] They were really hungry. Obviously, it's not okay that humans are dying. I've said this in the shark attack thing. I think you guys understand my vibe here. I don't think anybody who takes this as like, Alaina, he thinks humans should die by animal attacks and that animals should live. No, wrong. It's just a bummer. It's a bummer that they were encroaching. They were doing a job that they were sent there to do. But we are encroaching on animals land and that these things happen when we encroach on animals land and it sucks. You can see he was just trying to protect his men. The animals are just trying to eat.
Speaker 1:
[24:41] It's the circle of life.
Speaker 2:
[24:43] But yeah, it was sad. But none of these things caught the lions and they didn't really prove effective. In fact, Patterson wrote, the beasts much preferred live men to dead donkeys.
Speaker 1:
[24:56] Wow.
Speaker 2:
[24:56] Which I was like, dude.
Speaker 1:
[24:57] Well, I mean, when a donkey dies, it's like the same thing when a human dies, decomposition starts to set in. So it probably tastes a little funky.
Speaker 2:
[25:05] I'm sure it tastes different. I'm sure they prefer fresh food. Now, given the amount of time and energy that James Patterson devoted to hunting these man-eating lions, you could easily forget that regardless of nocturnal terrors, there was a construction project going on during the day. During the day, they work crews conducted backbreaking, exhausting manual labor, building a massive bridge across the river. The physical toll this work took on the body was immense. Like we can't even, and in the heat.
Speaker 1:
[25:36] And then think about the mental toll.
Speaker 2:
[25:38] With inadequate, I'm sure, like supplies that they need to stay like as hydrated as they could be. All this, you got to think about that for sure. So it's like, then they're going to sleep at night. They should be able to just plop down and pass out and let their body recover from what they've been going through. They can't. And it's like, and Patterson here is staying up in trees and the pouring rain all night trying to protect his camp.
Speaker 1:
[26:00] And leading this project.
Speaker 2:
[26:01] And it's just the psychological strain of having become prey for an animal at night.
Speaker 1:
[26:07] That's fucked.
Speaker 2:
[26:08] That's a lot. None of them felt equipped to protect themselves. And then they're dealing with this fight or flight thing.
Speaker 1:
[26:14] It's similar to like when there's a serial killer in your area. You know what I mean?
Speaker 2:
[26:18] Your body needs time to rest and recharge from your day. If this is happening at night, it's like, this is bad. So the attempts to catch or kill the lions may have provided a sort of psychological distraction, at least from the sheer terror of being actively hunted at night. But feeling proactive didn't really do a lot to stave off the reality that it was only a matter of time before they made their way into the camps every night. Night after night, the men listened helplessly as the terrified cries coming from nearby camps went on and on and on, as one or more of their co-workers were yanked out of bed and dragged away to their death. We'll find out one of these lions ate upwards of 20 men.
Speaker 1:
[27:03] Holy shit.
Speaker 2:
[27:04] Yeah, so it was night after night.
Speaker 1:
[27:08] 20 men.
Speaker 2:
[27:09] And sometimes the victim would get lucky. Like one night in early April, a Greek contractor managed to avoid the horrible fate that his co-workers faced when the lion grabbed the mattress he was lying on, rather than him, and he was able to roll off an escape before the lion realized that it was holding a mattress and not a human.
Speaker 1:
[27:29] Oh, shit.
Speaker 2:
[27:31] But yeah. But more often than not, the lion struck with unbelievable speed and precision. They're just highly evolved.
Speaker 1:
[27:39] That's the other thing you have to think of. They're so fast.
Speaker 2:
[27:42] They're highly evolved predators. This is what they do. So it gives the victim and the other men in the tent have no second to react. They can't do anything.
Speaker 1:
[27:51] Also just imagine being the person like sleeping next to the person that gets dragged out of the tent.
Speaker 2:
[27:56] And you can't help them.
Speaker 1:
[27:57] You can't help them. They're like, it was that close to being me.
Speaker 2:
[28:00] And hearing them scream. How do you reconcile that? Exactly. Now, according to Ronald Preston, the engineer managing the team at Railhead, by the end of April, the Lions had killed quote, 16 Punjabi workmen and one Punjabi headman.
Speaker 1:
[28:15] Wow.
Speaker 2:
[28:16] So while the loss of life was obviously the primary issue in the camps, it wasn't the only challenge that was being posed by the Lions. For the most part, an animal will really only kind of expend as little energy and effort as necessary to catch prey. And this is pretty true for the Tsavo Man-Eaters too. If they could simply stick their heads in through a flap of a tent and grab a man by the neck, that was simple for them. They would do so and just be on their way. Other times, however, it seemed like the circumstances were unfolding in a way that a simple attack, like what would normally be a simple attack, would escalate into pure chaos. And they would not really run away.
Speaker 1:
[28:58] They would like-
Speaker 2:
[28:59] The lions. Yeah, they would stay the course until they got it. Okay. Like one evening towards the end of April, one of the lions climbed high into a tree adjacent to a tent in which 14 workers were sleeping. And it leaped down onto the tent from above.
Speaker 1:
[29:17] No.
Speaker 2:
[29:19] Crawled into a tree and jumped on top of the tent.
Speaker 1:
[29:24] Oh my God.
Speaker 2:
[29:26] Every night, my 80 pound dog jumps on me in bed to lay on me. And it's the scariest event in my life every time. And that's a little poop monster who's just there to snuggle me.
Speaker 1:
[29:44] Brother, I'll do you one better. I have a 12 pound cat that scares the shit out of me on the nightly. 12 pounds. How the fuck much does a lion weigh?
Speaker 2:
[29:53] A whole ass man-eating lion jumps on your fucking tent. Can you imagine the chaos that broke out in that tent?
Speaker 1:
[30:03] No, I'm Googling.
Speaker 2:
[30:03] Because now you can't see, you can't move. You're being restricted by tent fabric.
Speaker 1:
[30:10] You don't know where it is. And a whole ass lion.
Speaker 2:
[30:12] And 13 other people.
Speaker 1:
[30:14] I need you to guess what a typical male lion generally weighs. Give me a little bit of a range between what and what.
Speaker 2:
[30:24] I'm trying to think. So my dogs are like 80 pounds each. OK. So two of them are 160 pounds.
Speaker 1:
[30:30] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[30:33] Between like 200?
Speaker 1:
[30:37] No.
Speaker 2:
[30:37] And 250 maybe?
Speaker 1:
[30:39] No. Average adult male lions generally weigh between 330 and 570 pounds. And if it was a woman lion, I think they were boys. Were they boys?
Speaker 2:
[30:55] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[30:55] Well, just so you know, women lions average between 265 and 400 pounds.
Speaker 2:
[31:02] Holy shit.
Speaker 1:
[31:04] So like that might have just killed somebody.
Speaker 2:
[31:06] Just purely off of landing on them. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[31:09] Holy shit.
Speaker 2:
[31:11] And just the fact that that lion, first of all, thinking of a lion climbing up a tree.
Speaker 1:
[31:17] I didn't know that they could climb trees, to be honest with you.
Speaker 2:
[31:19] Like you can't get away from it by climbing up a tree. Imagine climbing up a tree and the lions like- Me too. Yeah. I'll get, I'll meet you up there. Like I'd be like, oh shit.
Speaker 1:
[31:28] Absolutely.
Speaker 2:
[31:29] And then for a lion to look down and be like, huh, I bet if I jumped on that, I could probably get them.
Speaker 1:
[31:35] Oh my God. Like what the fuck?
Speaker 2:
[31:38] So it easily tore through the top of the tent and its claw caught one man in the shoulder and knocked him to the ground. But in its attempt to make a hasty escape because things got a little crazy. Okay. The lion grabbed a large bag of rice and thought it was a person at first, lying on the ground next to the man and made off with the large bag of rice.
Speaker 1:
[31:59] Have the rice.
Speaker 2:
[31:59] Which also is bad.
Speaker 1:
[32:00] Cause I'm like, they need food. Cause they need food source, I know.
Speaker 2:
[32:02] The next day when the men searched the area, they found the bag of rice a little less than a mile away. And it was made of cloth, that's why too. And it was torn to shreds and the contents was just everywhere. Now, in another failed yet still harrowing attack, an Indian trader was approaching one of the camps along with his donkey late one evening, when one of the lions sprung from the underbrush and knocked them both to the ground with like, incredible force. The donkey was badly wounded by the claws of the lion, and the trader assumed the lion would make off with the donkey rather than fight the stronger prey, like they know. And the trader quickly found out he was wrong though, cause the lion turned right to him, in literally like, in like, like haunches up like I'm going to attack. But when the lion began to move, his claws and forepaws were in the way he described this later was he said it was almost comical, the way he was tangled in the donkey's reins. So because the donkey had like a bunch of empty oil tins and other pieces of metal like strung on his reins. So the lion was eventually able to rip the reins free from the donkey, but they were still tangled around his front legs.
Speaker 1:
[33:15] Oh my God.
Speaker 2:
[33:16] And according to Patterson, the rattle and clatter made by these as he dragged them after him gave him such a fright that he turned tail and bolted off into the jungle to the intense relief of the traitor.
Speaker 1:
[33:28] I mean, that's great for the traitor.
Speaker 2:
[33:29] But like the poor.
Speaker 1:
[33:30] And that lion was probably so embarrassed. He was probably like, fuck y'all. I was going to eat you.
Speaker 2:
[33:35] You're an asshole.
Speaker 1:
[33:36] Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:
[33:37] Like damn. So among the workers, a legend emerged that these were not ordinary lions, but they were in fact, shaitans, which it means demons. Oh fuck. Others believe the lions were physical manifestations of the spirits of long dead local tribal leaders who were angry with the British for invading and altering the region with their construction work.
Speaker 1:
[34:00] Or maybe they're just lions that are upset that you're interrupting their region.
Speaker 2:
[34:03] There's also that possibility.
Speaker 1:
[34:05] Because that seems pretty simple.
Speaker 2:
[34:06] These were, so these beliefs came out of like the behavior of the animals, which was definitely more aggressive and more assertive than ordinary lions. Yeah. And the lengths that they would go to attack and eat humans and how consistent they were, that was different because there was other prey available. So they were like, there's like wildebeests over there. That's like your favorite thing in the world. Why are you not eating those and you're coming to us?
Speaker 1:
[34:32] When they're so much bigger too. Like they're going to satisfy more.
Speaker 2:
[34:35] We are not lions like choice prey.
Speaker 1:
[34:38] No.
Speaker 2:
[34:38] Like given us and like a wildebeest or us and something else, they're picking the other thing every time.
Speaker 1:
[34:44] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[34:44] So by the summer, complaints about the attacks and the missing workers had finally reached such a fever pitch that the British authorities had to address the fears of further attacks. In July, the company responsible for the project, the British East Africa Company, offered a 200 rupee reward for, and this is sad, quote, the skin of any lion shown to the satisfaction of the managers to have been destroyed within one mile on either side of the railway line and to a distance of five miles east and west of the River Tsavo.
Speaker 1:
[35:16] It's one thing to kill an animal for your protection.
Speaker 2:
[35:19] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[35:20] That, you know, you know how we feel.
Speaker 2:
[35:22] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[35:23] It's another thing to skin a fucking lion. I know. I'm sorry, but go fuck yourself.
Speaker 2:
[35:29] I don't get it. You, like, like, this is the 1800s.
Speaker 1:
[35:34] I'm so upset by that.
Speaker 2:
[35:35] It was wild.
Speaker 1:
[35:35] That's so upsetting.
Speaker 2:
[35:37] Now, in a region that frequently struggled with poverty as well, this bounty on lions attracted a large number of hunters. Because again, they're like struggling just to feed themselves. Like a 200 rupee reward is huge. And so like a ton of hunters and would be hunters came to the area, all hoping to claim the reward. It was likely the dramatic increase in people and boys that actually ended up keeping the Tsavo Man-Eaters, quote unquote, away for so many months. Because they did stay away for quite some time.
Speaker 1:
[36:07] They said, fuck that. We know what y'all are up to.
Speaker 2:
[36:08] They're real smart. Right. Because these lions are clever. They would know better than to return to an area where the sounds of rifles could be heard every few minutes. They're like, yeah, I'm going to be, I'm good.
Speaker 1:
[36:18] I think I'm all set with that.
Speaker 2:
[36:19] The presence of so many hunters and the lion's failure to appear night after night allowed workmen at least to relax for the first time since the project began. But because of that, they let their guard down. And so when they did return, which they did, they were not prepared. After nearly six months of relative peace. Wow. Yeah. The attacks began again in Patterson's camps one night in early November. He wrote, on this occasion, a number of men had been sleeping outside their tents for the sake of coolness. They let their guard down. He said, when the men heard one of the lions forcing its way into the Boma, which was the animal pen where they were sleeping. He said, all the men leaped to their feet and raised the alarm to alert the rest of the camp. Then they took up whatever weapons they could find to try to protect themselves. This was like rock sticks, just hurling them in the direction of the lions, just trying to protect themselves. Unfortunately, the noise and thrown objects had no effect on the lion. A few moments later, the lion burst into the middle of the group of men and just grabbed one and dragged him off through the thorny fence and into the darkness. The lion just launched himself into the middle of a ton of men. Just grabbed the nearest one. That's not.
Speaker 1:
[37:41] That's insane.
Speaker 2:
[37:43] The entire camp listened with horror as two lions devoured this man not more than 30 yards away from the camp. Now, the return of the lions was disheartening, obviously, because they really were hoping they would have peace. But it wasn't just the return that shook up the men. It was now how fucking bold they were. So in the past, one lion would sneak silently into the camps, grab the unsuspecting prey, then drag the man nearly a mile away from camp before killing and eating him. Now the lions were aggressively forcing their way into the camps, like barreling through any protective measures, and attacking large groups of armed men, paying no attention to the loud sounds in thrown objects, and not going as far, and then grabbing the prey. They barely would wait until they were outside a camp before killing and eating him.
Speaker 1:
[38:35] They had to have been like legitimately starving.
Speaker 2:
[38:37] So the next morning, Patterson discovered the remains of this man less than 50 yards outside the camp. Unlike the previous attacks, he refused to let the men bury the remains this time, hoping the animal would return that night. Posted in his tree, he waited that night, but the only animal that came around was a hyena, and the hyena sniffed the remains and then just ran off. So the next morning, he received word that the lions had attacked another camp two miles down the river, like the same night. Night after night, he sat in the trees outside the camps along the river, listening as the men shouted their warnings from one camp to the next. And the warning that you would often hear, and I'm going to try my best to say this correctly, was, Kabar Dar Bayona Shatan Atah, which is, beware brothers, the devil is coming.
Speaker 1:
[39:28] Oh, shit.
Speaker 2:
[39:28] And they would be yelling this to each other.
Speaker 1:
[39:30] That's so chilling.
Speaker 2:
[39:31] But for at least one of the camps, the warnings always came way too late, and one among them was inevitably dragged away in the middle of the night. So these lines are getting more and more brazen by the day, it seemed. And one evening, one of them grabbed a man from the railway and actually brought him closer to the camp, rather than far away in order to eat him.
Speaker 1:
[39:50] What?
Speaker 2:
[39:51] Yeah. Patterson wrote, I could plainly hear them crunching the bones. Oh my God. And the sound of their dreadful purring filled the air and rang in my ears for days afterwards.
Speaker 1:
[40:03] I had to think of them purring. Like, that's so messed up.
Speaker 2:
[40:07] And the crunching bones. By mid-November, the lions changed their strategy yet again in another display of boldness. Until that point, their hunting pattern had been that one animal, again, would sneak into camp, the other would wait in the bush a distance away. Now, they were entering together. So now it wasn't just one bringing it out, it was both.
Speaker 1:
[40:28] They said, we don't need to look out.
Speaker 2:
[40:29] Sometimes now, grabbing multiple victims, because now each lion would grab one. Yeah. This new strategy didn't always work out very well for the animals, or for the victims on that matter. On one night in late November, the lions attacked one of the camps and dragged away two men into the dark, each one. From inside the camp, the workmen could hear one of the men moaning in pain just outside the camp. When they finally mustered up the courage to go out and look for him, they found that he was badly mauled, but he was stuck in the thorny underbrush a few dozen yards away from camp. It looked like he had become stuck there and the lion wasn't able to drag him through, so they left him and just went to consume the other victim. The workmen were able to untangle him from the bushes, but he died from its injuries the next day.
Speaker 1:
[41:15] I was going to say the thought of getting mauled by a lion and then stuck in gigantic thorns.
Speaker 2:
[41:20] Yeah. Worst way to die. By the beginning of December, the workmen on Patterson's crew had finally had enough. One afternoon when they returned to his camp, Patterson found the entire construction crew standing there waiting for him. They said they had come from India to work and get paid, and they said, we did not come here to get attacked and eaten by lions, and they said, we are not going to work until these lions are gone. I mean, and you can't blame them. This is terrifying.
Speaker 1:
[41:49] Yeah, I would just be like, we're not doing this.
Speaker 2:
[41:52] Well, many of them didn't even bother with the ultimatum. They just waited for the next train to pass, hopped aboard and said, bye.
Speaker 1:
[41:58] That would be me.
Speaker 2:
[41:59] Somewhere else is better than here. That would be me. To his credit, Patterson did take this ultimatum very seriously, and in the weeks after this, all work on the railroad ceased while they focused on lion proofing the camps. So he just stopped the work. He was like, we're going to figure this out. So Patterson's persistence over the previous year finally paid off in December. On the morning of December 9th, he was leaving his camp when he saw one of the men running towards him frantically shouting, Simba, Simba, which means lion.
Speaker 1:
[42:30] Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2:
[42:31] So he was saying lion, lion, and waving his arms above his hand frantically. When he reached the camp, he told Patterson that the lions had attempted to grab one of the workmen down by the river. When he escaped, they killed the donkey instead, and we're currently eating it.
Speaker 1:
[42:45] Okay.
Speaker 2:
[42:46] So knowing he might not have a better opportunity, he grabbed his rifle and followed this man back to the river. When they reached the banks of the river, he saw that one of the lions was eating a donkey by the water. Unfortunately, as he approached quietly, one of his guides stepped on a branch and caused it to snap.
Speaker 1:
[43:04] Horror movie no-no, literally.
Speaker 2:
[43:05] So the noise alerted the lion who looked up in their direction, growled, and then dragged the carcass of the donkey into deep underbrush. Like, just was like, fuck y'all.
Speaker 1:
[43:14] He literally said, fuck y'all.
Speaker 2:
[43:16] That's exactly what I was going to say. You know that Homer Simpson gif where he just backs into the bushes? That's what that lion did.
Speaker 1:
[43:22] He's like, you saw nothing.
Speaker 2:
[43:24] No. Of course, Patterson is terrified. He's like, I'm going to lose this animal and it's right there. I could end this. So he instructed the man to return to the camp, gather up the other men and all the cans, pots, and pans they could find. He said, this plan is to have the men surround the area and simultaneously cause incredible noise that would send the animal running in his direction. Which was pretty smart. Pretty smart and very brave. So Patterson crouched down behind a large ant hill, not far from where they had seen the lion. When all the men were in position, he gave the signal. He wrote, soon a tremendous noise was raised by the advancing line of men. To my great joy, out into the open path, stepped a huge, maneless lion. After tracking the animals for nearly a year, and he was really only catching glimpses of them in the darkness at this point, he said, seeing one of these in daylight, it was like, incredible. Yeah, I'm sure. It was terrifying. When the lion got within 15 yards, he emerged from his hiding place and took aim. And his sudden appearance startled the lion, obviously, who dug in its claws and crouched back on its haunches, and he was ready to leap at him. Patterson pulled the trigger, but to his absolute horror, he heard that dull thud a rifle makes when it misfires.
Speaker 1:
[44:44] Oh, no.
Speaker 2:
[44:46] He said, I was so disconcerted at this untoward accident that I forgot all about firing the left barrel, and with the intention of reloading, I lowered the rifle from my shoulder. Thinking the animal would use the opportunity to attack Patterson, he was surprised when it instead ran into the bush. So he's like, fuck, I'm going to lose this thing for good. So he raised his rifle again and just pointed into the direction that it had run and just blindly fired. He said he heard an angry growl that said that he did hit him. But he said, but when he went to check the area, the lion had escaped. But he's like, I think I hit him. Now determined to end the terror, he went back to where the donkey lay in the brush by the river, and took up a position in one of the trees, hoping the lions would come back for that. Several hours later, after the sun went down, he heard the sound of snapping twigs and realized one of them had come back. But rather than go back to the carcass, as Patterson thought he would, the lion sniffed the air for a few moments, then emitted a low growl, and that was indicating that he sensed his presence. He literally sniffed him out in the air, was like, I'm going to fuck you up. So to Patterson's surprise, the lion ignored the donkey carcass, totally ignored it, available food right there, and instead began searching the area for him.
Speaker 1:
[46:08] And they can climb trees.
Speaker 2:
[46:09] Uh-huh. And he said, for about two hours, he horrified me by slowly creeping round and round my crazy structure, gradually drawing closer. For hours, he sat silently in this tree, desperately trying not to make even a sound.
Speaker 1:
[46:27] Literally move a muscle.
Speaker 2:
[46:29] His trance-like state was finally broken when sometime after midnight, he was struck in the back of the head by something large. And at first, because he kind of zoned out, because he was trying to just like really zone, he thought the lion had come up and had actually found him. But then he realized he had been struck by a large owl.
Speaker 1:
[46:48] I love owls.
Speaker 2:
[46:50] What the fuck are the odds of that?
Speaker 1:
[46:52] They're working together, babe.
Speaker 2:
[46:54] I'm like, Mother Nature is just like doing its damn thing.
Speaker 1:
[46:57] Mother Nature is like, get out of here.
Speaker 2:
[46:58] Like, what the fuck? So a large owl just fucking just walloped him in the head. The jolt caused him to look around frantically and he realized the lion was crouched down in the brush just a few yards away. He could see his yellow eyes staring directly at him. Oh, Certain this was going to be his absolute last chance. He fired the rifle and he hit the lion directly in the chest. Patterson wrote, he gave a most terrific roar and leaped and sprang about in all directions. The lion had retreated into the brush and was likely trying to escape, so he did fire again in his direction. Finally, a few moments later, he heard the last of the lion's breaths and it was over.
Speaker 1:
[47:40] I know that they were killing men, but I'm going to actually cry right now.
Speaker 2:
[47:42] No, it's really sad.
Speaker 1:
[47:43] I really hate it.
Speaker 2:
[47:43] It's really sad.
Speaker 1:
[47:44] That's the part that I don't like about these stories, is that we always kill the animal for doing what animals do.
Speaker 2:
[47:50] I know.
Speaker 1:
[47:51] I know this is a very extreme case and again, I don't like that people were killed, but I'm really fucking sad right now.
Speaker 2:
[47:59] There's just a lot of sadness. When Patterson finally got a good look at the lion, he was truly impressed. He said it was nearly 10 feet long.
Speaker 1:
[48:08] Holy shit.
Speaker 2:
[48:09] Four feet high, larger than an average lion. And aside from the obvious scars from the thorn brushes, he was unblemished, like a beautiful lion. And as Patterson had assumed, the first shot struck him in the heart. And one of the subsequent shots had hit him in the thigh.
Speaker 1:
[48:26] Oh my God, you're actually going to make me cry right now.
Speaker 2:
[48:29] When the news of the death reached the camp, several men arrived at the site and they brought the animal back to the camp. So a few days later, Patterson set out a trap for the second lion, tying three, and this was three goats to a 250 pound rail. What are you trying to do to me, bro?
Speaker 1:
[48:45] I love goats.
Speaker 2:
[48:46] A few hours later, the lion appeared and grabbed one of the goats and that gave Patterson a chance to fire. Unfortunately, when he fired, the shot hit the lion in the shoulder, not the head, and the shot barely managed to slow him down and he took off into the brush, and he dragged all three goats and the rail with him.
Speaker 1:
[49:04] He said, fuck your shit. He said, I'm taking it all.
Speaker 2:
[49:07] All of it.
Speaker 1:
[49:08] Don't piss off a lion.
Speaker 2:
[49:09] So the shot might not have done its job, but it did seem to drive him off and it wasn't seen again for more than a week.
Speaker 1:
[49:14] Okay.
Speaker 2:
[49:15] On the evening of December 26th, the lion appeared again at one of the camps and it managed to get through the thorny fencing and into the camp, where it tore through several tents and destroyed much of the site, but it failed to attack any of the men. Okay. Believing the injured animal might make a return to the same camp, he set up, Patterson set up a blind in one of the trees near the camp and waited. A few hours later, the lion appeared and he shot the animal, killing it instantly. Which is really sad.
Speaker 1:
[49:45] It is really sad.
Speaker 2:
[49:46] In the years that followed the attacks, the legend of the Tsavo Man-Eaters continued to spread and grow. By the time the story reached its peak popularity, it was said that the lions killed and devoured hundreds of men. A worker on the railway wrote, hundreds of men fell victim to these savage creatures whose very jaws were steeped in blood. Bones, flesh, skin and blood, they devoured it all and left not a trace behind them. In reality, attacks on humans by large predators are extremely rare. Because we are not part of any predator's diet, and we pose a massive threat to every other species. Because we shoot them. Ross Barnett, a paleogeneticist at the University of Copenhagen said, What strikes me about the Tsavo story is that it is almost incomprehensible to a 21st century Western mindset. The terror that the night must have brought is unimaginable. No, it really is.
Speaker 1:
[50:41] It really is.
Speaker 2:
[50:41] So if humans are not part of a lion's diet, and we're actually pretty hard to catch, you have to go through a lot. Why the fuck did they hunt and kill so many men?
Speaker 1:
[50:51] Was there some kind of shortage going on of wildebeest?
Speaker 2:
[50:55] It turns out, like most repeated large cat attacks on humans, the explanation for these attacks were found in the animal's mouths. In a recent scientific study of the Tsavo lion skeletons, which by the way are on display at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Tsavo, like S-A-V-O? T-S-A-V-O. Zoologists discovered that both lions had damaged teeth. Even without causing illness from infection, which was likely, broken and damaged teeth can make it difficult or extremely painful for an animal to consume its regular diet. Oh, wow. So it switches to something it can catch and eat. So the theory, and this is also interesting, the theory was supported by a DNA analysis of the lion's hair, which found the animals had not consumed any wildebeest, which is its favorite prey, and had otherwise been eating slower, softer animals. So Riley Black from Smithsonian Magazine in 2017 wrote, humans were a food of last resort, and the lions were primarily focused on the soft parts.
Speaker 1:
[52:05] Okay.
Speaker 2:
[52:05] These were not devilish skeleton crunchers, but injured cats doing what they could to survive.
Speaker 1:
[52:11] Oh, that makes it even better.
Speaker 2:
[52:12] Additional information, this is really, this made me sad, because I was like, Oh no. Additional information from the study revealed that these two lions were likely brothers.
Speaker 1:
[52:24] I need you to shut up.
Speaker 2:
[52:26] Quote, the fact that they had each other's DNA in their teeth suggests that the lions were closely bonded and spent time grooming one another.
Speaker 1:
[52:34] No, I'm actually not built for this.
Speaker 2:
[52:36] So when that first lion died, it makes me so sad for that second one, because he was just without his brother.
Speaker 1:
[52:42] I can't do that. I can't do that.
Speaker 2:
[52:44] Now as for how many victims the lions took, according to zoologist Bruce Patterson, one lion ate 10 people and the other 24.
Speaker 1:
[52:53] It's a lot of people.
Speaker 2:
[52:54] It's a lot of people. As for John Henry Patterson, his killing of the Man-Eating Lions did make him a local hero and somewhat of a legend. With the threat removed, the crews were able to go back to work and the railroad bridge was completed in February, 1899. And when the project was finished, Patterson served tours of duty in the Second Boer War and World War I, among other conflicts. He also found time to begin a writing career, and he started with his account of the Tsavo Man-Eater attacks, followed by several other adventure novels, which like badass. Following his retirement from the military, he focused really on writing, and he also traveled the world giving lectures about wildlife and big game. On June 18th, 1949, James Patterson died of natural causes in Bel Air, California at the age of 79.
Speaker 1:
[53:46] Wow, what a life.
Speaker 2:
[53:47] And that's, he did protect his crew.
Speaker 1:
[53:50] He did.
Speaker 2:
[53:51] So there's that.
Speaker 1:
[53:52] He did.
Speaker 2:
[53:52] I know. I feel bad for the lions. I feel bad for obviously the men that had to go through it. It's the same thing as the shark attack. You feel bad for everybody involved. I just, I know.
Speaker 1:
[54:03] Something in me like I can't hear about animal death.
Speaker 2:
[54:07] Like animals are innocent.
Speaker 1:
[54:09] They are.
Speaker 2:
[54:09] They don't have the gnarly, you know, unless it's an orca whale. I feel like orcas have straight up homicidal.
Speaker 1:
[54:17] You know what? Did we like wrong them though?
Speaker 2:
[54:19] I feel like we probably did.
Speaker 1:
[54:21] Like we probably made them that way.
Speaker 2:
[54:22] I'm not saying orca whales are like wrong. I'm just saying they are homicidal. They have instincts that we are not, that they're not supposed to have. Like they have, they plan and plot.
Speaker 1:
[54:34] No, they do. It's like I say the ocean's not for us.
Speaker 2:
[54:36] No, it's not.
Speaker 1:
[54:37] Then they're trying to, they're trying to stand there.
Speaker 2:
[54:39] I need to know, I need some more fucking terrifying ocean stories.
Speaker 1:
[54:43] Yeah, I like the ocean ones.
Speaker 2:
[54:44] Those are fun.
Speaker 1:
[54:45] Because I love cats.
Speaker 2:
[54:47] I know. And like, I love lions.
Speaker 1:
[54:49] Lions are just like big cats.
Speaker 2:
[54:50] One of my kids loves lions.
Speaker 1:
[54:52] I know, and she always has.
Speaker 2:
[54:53] This would make her so mad. She'd be like, let them go.
Speaker 1:
[54:56] I know, that one was, that was a tough one for me.
Speaker 2:
[54:58] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[54:59] We got to space these out.
Speaker 2:
[55:01] Because, God. Very interesting.
Speaker 1:
[55:03] Very interesting, though, especially the issue with their teeth, and that's what they were going after.
Speaker 2:
[55:08] And just the fact that these men were just yanked out of tents in the middle of the night, it's like, that's horrifying.
Speaker 1:
[55:14] That's so fucked up. I don't want to take away. I know I've been harping a lot on the animals, but that is incredibly up.
Speaker 2:
[55:20] And again, they're sleeping, like they're...
Speaker 1:
[55:23] Exhausted.
Speaker 2:
[55:24] After an exhausting day of manual labor, it's like, That sounds like hell on earth.
Speaker 1:
[55:29] It's also good to remind yourself, too, that there weren't a shit ton of jobs back then.
Speaker 2:
[55:33] No, that's the other thing.
Speaker 1:
[55:34] They were desperate for work and money for their families.
Speaker 2:
[55:37] The ones who are leaving are the ones who literally can't handle it.
Speaker 1:
[55:40] Like they were broken down.
Speaker 2:
[55:41] You know how bad it was for some of them to be like, fuck that, anywhere else is better than this.
Speaker 1:
[55:46] To be faced with the possibility of being eaten by a lion in the middle of the night.
Speaker 2:
[55:49] Things are bad.
Speaker 1:
[55:50] That's rough.
Speaker 2:
[55:50] If you're willing to stick that out.
Speaker 1:
[55:52] That's pretty fucking brutal. Well, and then you think of how many men did stick it out.
Speaker 2:
[55:57] Exactly. Like a billion zillion degrees where they are in Africa. Like that night, they were just trying to sleep in a cool area because it's like a billion degrees in your sitting duck.
Speaker 1:
[56:07] Fuck.
Speaker 2:
[56:09] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[56:09] What a story. That was very fascinating.
Speaker 2:
[56:11] I also didn't know about mainland lions.
Speaker 1:
[56:13] I didn't know about mainland lions. So that's something interesting. They're beautiful. I was just looking at pictures.
Speaker 2:
[56:18] Lions are gorgeous. When I say I just want to smuggle, I know that they would. But don't. Don't.
Speaker 1:
[56:26] I'm not going to.
Speaker 2:
[56:26] Don't do that.
Speaker 1:
[56:27] I won't.
Speaker 2:
[56:28] Never.
Speaker 1:
[56:28] Remember when we went to Disney together and we heard the lion roar on the safari?
Speaker 2:
[56:33] That was gnarly.
Speaker 1:
[56:34] That was the craziest thing I ever experienced.
Speaker 2:
[56:36] Lion roars are life changing.
Speaker 1:
[56:39] Oh.
Speaker 2:
[56:40] Because they're just dammed.
Speaker 1:
[56:41] Like when that movie starts. Yeah. You know, like those movies.
Speaker 2:
[56:45] That one movie.
Speaker 1:
[56:46] I don't know why I said that movie. What production is that?
Speaker 2:
[56:50] Um, it's the, uh, the fucking.
Speaker 1:
[56:56] I'm just looking at it in my head.
Speaker 2:
[56:57] I am too. I'm watching it in my head. What is the production company that has the lion?
Speaker 1:
[57:02] Is it MGM? Is it MGM?
Speaker 2:
[57:03] I think it is MGM. I can see it in my head.
Speaker 1:
[57:06] I think you're exactly right.
Speaker 2:
[57:07] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[57:08] Hi, Karen in Georgia.
Speaker 2:
[57:10] Yeah, it is MGM.
Speaker 1:
[57:11] Yeah, I thought so.
Speaker 2:
[57:12] Did you say hey, Karen in Georgia?
Speaker 1:
[57:14] Yeah, because I said you're exactly right.
Speaker 2:
[57:16] Oh, OK. I thought you were thinking MFM. Oh, no. I was like, it's MGM.
Speaker 1:
[57:20] I was like, you're exactly right. And then I said, hey, Karen in Georgia. Hey. That was insane.
Speaker 2:
[57:25] Yeah, that was wild.
Speaker 1:
[57:26] I have a fun fact.
Speaker 2:
[57:28] I love fun facts.
Speaker 1:
[57:29] It's kind of a morbid fact, to be honest with you.
Speaker 2:
[57:31] I mean, this is what the show is.
Speaker 1:
[57:33] I got this from Cosmopolitan. Chainsaws were first invented.
Speaker 2:
[57:37] Oh, I know this.
Speaker 1:
[57:38] I had a feeling you might know this. For childbirth.
Speaker 2:
[57:42] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[57:42] They were developed in Scotland in the late 18th century to help aid and speed up the process of symphysiotomy, which is widening the pubic cartilage and the removal of diseased latin bone during childbirth.
Speaker 2:
[57:58] That's horrifying.
Speaker 1:
[57:59] What the fuck?
Speaker 2:
[58:00] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[58:01] You knew that? Why did I know you were gonna know that?
Speaker 2:
[58:04] You said that ahead of time too. I did.
Speaker 1:
[58:06] I was like, you might know this.
Speaker 2:
[58:08] You might know this. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[58:09] That is a crazy fact. Isn't that crazy? I wanna know a lot more about that, but also nothing else about it at the same time.
Speaker 2:
[58:16] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[58:17] Chainsaws, man. Can you imagine? I've never given birth. You've done it twice, three times technically, I guess. What would you do if you were just laying there and they're like, brr, brr, brr?
Speaker 2:
[58:27] No, the sound of a chainsaw is terrifying.
Speaker 1:
[58:30] Yeah. At the end of every haunted house ever.
Speaker 2:
[58:33] Oh, God. It's like my least favorite part of the haunted house.
Speaker 1:
[58:35] Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:
[58:36] I hate it.
Speaker 1:
[58:37] To think of that coming anywhere near your situation, your downstairs mix-up.
Speaker 2:
[58:41] It's going to become a downstairs mix-up at that point.
Speaker 1:
[58:43] It's going to become a downstairs catastrophe. Catastrophe period. A downstairs, I'm trying to think of it.
Speaker 2:
[58:50] A downstairs, ugh.
Speaker 1:
[58:51] I'm trying to think of a D word. A downstairs disaster.
Speaker 2:
[58:54] Yes, there you go.
Speaker 1:
[58:56] And with that, we leave you. What an unhinged beginning, middle and end.
Speaker 2:
[59:00] Lord.
Speaker 1:
[59:00] Well, we hope you keep listening.
Speaker 2:
[59:02] And we hope you keep it weird.
Speaker 1:
[59:05] But that's the way that you use a chainsaw during childbirth because, holy, and don't boop a lion.
Speaker 2:
[59:10] I know it's hard. I know.
Speaker 1:
[59:13] I want to find a lion right now, just to boop it.