Bill Bryson's African Diary Read Free Page B

would it cost?” I asked.
    “Ten thousand US dollars.” He gave me an apologetic look, as if he had just said ten million.
    “And do you have any hope of getting that kind of money?” I asked.
    “As things stand at the moment,” he answered and considered the question carefully for a minute, “no.”
    In the early evening we made our way to the modestly grand central railway station in Nairobi to catch the overnight sleeper to Mombasa.
    Kenyan Railways has something of a tradition of killing its passengers. In just the past decade, a little over 200 people have died in accidents on its trains. The accident that seems to have attracted the most publicity in recent years was one in 1999 when the overnight Nairobi-to-Mombasa train jumped the rails at an interesting sounding place called “Man Eaters Junction,” in Tsavo National Park, killing 32 people.
    The crew blamed brake failure. Kenya Railways blamed the crew. No one really knows what happened. The following year another 30-plus people were killed in two accidents, both involving runaway trains, in the space of four days.
The biggest disaster of all was in 1993 when a train bound for Mombasa from Nairobi plunged off a bridge and into the “crocodile-infested” Ngai Ndeithya River, killing 140 people. Ngai Ndeithya means “God help us” in Kiswahili, which would seem to be a not inappropriate motto for the railway itself. Almost since the beginning, however, the train has been known as the Lunatic Express. Can’t think why.
    Man Eaters Junction is so called, by the way, because in 1898 during the construction of the railway about 140 Indian workers were snatched and eaten by two lions (giving a whole new meaning to the term “Indian takeaway”). The railway’s chief engineer, an ex-army man named Lt. Col. John H. Patterson, spent months trying to lure the lions into a trap (often using understandably reluctant Indians as bait), but always failed. On one notable occasion a junior employee named C. H. Ryall sat up all night in an open railway carriage with a rifle trained on a pile of bait outside, but unfortunately nodded off. The lions ignored the bait and took poor Ryall instead.
    Finally in early December, after nine months of frustration, Patterson managed to bag one of the lions.
Three weeks later he shot and wounded the second one, which then bounded off into the bush. At first light the next morning he followed the trail of blood to the beast’s lair.
Though severely wounded, the lion charged. Patterson fired both barrels of his gun, and was nonplussed, to say the least, to find that the lion merely staggered sideways and then resumed coming for him.
Turning to his rifle bearer for his backup gun, Patterson was additionally nonplussed to discover that the bearer was 50 feet away and climbing a tree. Patterson likewise followed, just managing to haul himself onto a branch, the lion snapping at his quivering flanks. There he snatched the gun from the cowering bearer and fired once more, and the lion at last fell dead. The fate of the bearer is not recorded, but I believe we may reasonably assume that he was not further entrusted with the custody of firearms.
    The journey from Nairobi to Mombasa takes 13 hours, nearly all of it after dark, which is perhaps a mercy, all things considered. So long as it stays upright and settled on the rails, the train is quite wonderful. It was a little on the ancient side, to be sure, but we each had a snug private cabin, which looked comfortable enough, and the dining car was splendid, with a hearty three-course dinner and cheery, attentive service. Knowing the perils that lay ahead, we took the sensible precaution of anaesthetizing ourselves with many Tusker beers before, during and after dinner, but even so sleep was not to be found.
    To begin with the beds were small and decidedly on the hard side, but it was the wild and extraordinary motions of the train that made even light dozing impossible. Normally I love