Ghost of Tsavo
In 1898, two hauntingly elusive maneless lions killed and ate 140 workers who were building a railroad bridge over the Tsavo River in Kenya. These seemingly invincible man-eaters literally stopped the British Empire in its tracks during their year-long reign of terror. But the bloody exploits of...
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In 1898, two hauntingly elusive maneless lions killed and ate 140 workers who were building a railroad bridge over the Tsavo River in Kenya. These seemingly invincible man-eaters literally stopped the British Empire in its tracks during their year-long reign of terror. But the bloody exploits of these animals, immortalized in John Pattersons 1907 book, The Man-Eaters of Tsavo, and two feature films, Bwana Devil in 1952 and The Ghost and the Darkness in 1996, are only part of the story. Caputos Ghosts of Tsavo is a search for truth, exploring both how these near-mythical maneless beasts became man-eaters and the more unsettling proposition: Do they represent a feline missing link between modern lions and the prehistoric lions that preyed on our Pleistocene ancestors. Setting out over the forbidding plains of Kenyas Tsavo National Park, Caputo and his small corps of discoverya photographer and a few armed rangers from the Kenya Park Servicefollow two eminent scientists from the University of Minnesota determined to unlock the secrets of Africas most efficient killers. Suffused with the raw beauty and primitive danger of Tsavos wild landscape, Ghosts of Tsavo is a totally absorbing adventure narrative by an author justly regarded as among the finest writers of his generation.
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Format: ebook
ISBN:
9780792263623 (0792263626)
ASIN: 9780792263623
Publish date: 28-06-2002
Publisher: National Geographic Society
Pages no: 300
Edition language: English
Category:
Adventure,
Non Fiction,
Travel,
History,
Cultural,
Africa,
Science,
Environment,
Nature,
Animals,
Kenya,
Wildlife
The book opens with gripping tales of lion hunting in Africa. There was the famous tale of two man-eaters in Tsavo, Ghost and Darkness, which had killed and devoured hundreds of humans at the end of the 19th century. There have been other outbreaks. Why? What makes these man-eaters different from th...