MAN IN DARKNESS SKIN

Patterson and his colleagues estimate that one lion ate 10 people, and the other about 24-far fewer than the legendary 135 victims, but still horrifying. Chemical tests of hair samples recently confirmed that the lions had eaten human flesh in the months before they were killed. John Henry Patterson shot the lions (a 1996 movie, The Ghost and the Darkness, dramatized the story) and sold their bodies for $5,000 to the Field Museum in Chicago, where, stuffed, they greet visitors to this day.Д«ruce Patterson (no relation to John), a zoologist with the museum, continues to study those animals.

MAN IN DARKNESS SKIN

вЂњBones, flesh, skin and blood, they devoured all, and left not a trace behind them.вЂќ вЂњHundreds of men fell victims to these savage creatures, whose very jaws were steeped in blood,вЂќ wrote a worker on the railway, a project of the British colonial government. In 1898, two lions terrorized crews constructing a railroad bridge over the Tsavo River, killing-according to some estimates-135 people. So the lions may have gotten their taste for human flesh by eating the corpses.вЂќ вЂњThe death rate was high it was a bad area for sleeping sickness from the tsetse fly and the bodies of slaves who died or were dying were left where they dropped. вЂњFor centuries Arab slave caravans passed through Tsavo on the way to Mombasa,вЂќ said Samuel Kasiki, deputy director of Biodiversity Research and Monitoring with the Kenya Wildlife Service. Tsavo is hotter and drier than the Serengeti, and a male with a heavy mane вЂњwould squander his daily water allowance simply panting under a bush, with none to spare for patrolling his territory, hunting or finding mates.вЂќД«ut itвЂ™s the lionsвЂ™ reputation for preying on people that attracts attention. The most vigorous Serengeti males sport large dark manes, while in Tsavo they have short, thin manes or none at all. In Tsavo, male lions do not share power with other males. Their prides, with up to 10 females and just 1 male, are smaller than Serengeti lion prides, which have up to 20 females and 2 or more males. On such forays Patterson has come to better understand the Tsavo lions.

The three lions rose and Dickens led the two females into the scrub. Patterson identified them as a 4-year-old male he has named Dickens and two unnamed females.

One evening just after midnight, we came upon three lions resting by a water hole. A herd of elephants passed, their massive bodies silhouetted in the dark. Kudus, huge antelopes with curved horns, skittered away. A spotlight threw a slender beam through the darkness. We headed out in a truck along narrow red dirt trails through thick scrub. Their ancestors were vilified more than 100 years ago as the man-eaters of Tsavo, a vast swath of Kenya savanna around the Tsavo River.Д«ruce Patterson has spent the past decade studying lions in the Tsavo region, and for several nights I went into the bush with him and a team of volunteers, hoping to glimpse one of the beasts. They are perhaps the worldвЂ™s most notorious wild lions. In 1898, two lions attacked dozens of people before Lt.

Man in darkness