How man-eating lions of Tsavo ended up in US in 1924

Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson sold the bodies of the Tsavo lions to the Field Museum in Chicago where they were stuffed and put on display. [File, Standard]

Costs aside, the construction was to pass through some of Kenya's most inhospitable terrain; mountains, swamps, deserts and the Great Rift Valley. Yet, none of these compared to the deadly two male lions around Tsavo camp that brought construction to a standstill.

The lions brazenly attacked the 32,000-strong Indian workers and their local counterparts, even pulling some from moving railcars at the camp that came to be known as the "human butcher shop". The terrified workers claimed they were no ordinary lions but spirits of departed African chiefs unhappy about the construction.

For days, Patterson tethered a donkey or a goat on a tree to attract the lions, only to hear screams of yet another victim from a different camp. He watched in horror as one lion circled his flimsy 12 feet-high watchtower, completely ignoring the bait. The hunter had become the hunted.

On December 9, 1898, Col Patterson killed one of the brutes, and the other, three weeks later. He skinned them, using them as rugs in his house.

However, while on a speaking tour at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois in 1924, Patterson agreed to sell the skins and skulls for PS5,000, a good sum back then. They are among the most viewed trophies at the museum. Like other African countries, Kenyans have been clamouring for the return of "our man-eaters" to Kenya.