Ghosts of Tsavo

by Vered Ehsani

For those with little appetite remaining for historical matters, skip this section and go directly to the next.

  For the rest of you, perhaps you’re wondering how much of this narrative is based on anything resembling historical fact and what is more in the realm of fiction. Below are the facts and fictions as I understand them.

  Fact: The Ghost Lions of Tsavo did exist.

  Fiction: They weren’t really ghosts or anything of the paranormal realm. They were actually two maneless lions that were so famous as to be given names: The Ghost and The Darkness. They were each more than nine feet long; it took eight men to carry one after it had been shot.

  Fact: Mrs. Isabella Beeton’s Book of Household Management did indeed describe housewives as Household Generals. Another of Mrs. Steward’s favorite books, Mrs. Lydia Child’s American Frugal Housewife, clearly recommends earwax as a remedy for cracked lips.

  Fiction: I personally would never use earwax on any part of my body apart from inside my ears, and even that’s debatable.

  Fact: Ants don’t like cinnamon. Sprinkle some on the ground where they are and they will find another route.

  Fiction: The same cannot be said for lions, so please don’t try the cinnamon trick while on safari.

  Fact: The construction of the Uganda Railway between Mombasa and Kisumu was started in 1896. Nairobi is approximately mid-way between the two cities.

  Fiction: Initially, the train only carried construction materials. It began to accept passengers in 1903, so Mrs. Knight and the Steward family couldn’t have used the train from Mombasa to Nairobi in 1899.

  Fact: Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, started life as a British railway camp and supply depot for the Uganda Railway in 1899 and it was, as Mrs. Steward points out, built on a brackish swamp. Nowadays, though, we’d call that a wetland.

  Fiction: In the year this story takes place (1899—one year after the shooting of the man-eating lions of Tsavo), there probably wasn’t anything more than a tented camp for workers; more established homes such as the Steward residence might not have been built yet, but they soon were.

  Fact: In the early 1900s, Nairobi became the “first stop” for big game hunters, beginning the decimation of African wildlife that still continues today with illegal poaching.

  Fact: On 11 October 1899 (a couple weeks before the Steward family left London), the Second Boer War began between the UK and the Boers in South Africa.

  Fact: Shortly after the Steward family arrived in their new home, the British and Egyptian victory ended the war in Sudan.

  Fact: Vered has other books you might want to read (their descriptions are further below).

  Fiction: Vered doesn’t live in a mud hut. Her kids don’t ride an elephant to school as their father uses the elephant to go to work. And the pet lion ran away.

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