As I came into the dining car I could see an empty chair or two at several of the tables. I had the option to sit at a table with three well-dressed German tourists and their expensive cameras and Rolex watches; a sedate English couple in their late sixties; a loud and laughing Australian film crew in identical safari jackets with arm patches that read, "Australian Broadcast Network, Channel 15"; or a thin, tall, grey-haired gentleman who sported narrow tortoise-shell glasses and a full black mustache.
I chose to sit opposite the single gentleman. He was reading the London Times. He continued to do so even after I sat down. No attempt was made by him to either look up or say "good morning."
I had the feeling that he was not reading the paper at all, but in deep meditation pondering why fate had now placed him at the same breakfast table with a perfect stranger who was no doubt an American, the type that always wants to talk.
He was right if that is what he was thinking, but I could wait. I was not so brash as to be insensitive to the fact that breakfasts are not a particularly appropriate time to strike up a conversation with a stranger, especially one who was reading the Sunday Times.
I ordered my breakfast and watched the other passengers in the diner. German tourists always fascinate me. They seem to talk and eat with such great relish. I continually marvel at the incredible strength of the stomach that enables them to eat salami and drink schnapps at breakfast.
The English couple were waiting for their bill. They sat in absolute silence. No conversation passed between them. She looked out the window to the left and he out the window to the right. They seemed so very lonely together. In observing their behavior I remember some advice passed on to me by my father. "Never marry a woman unless you feel reasonably sure you will be able to converse with her in your old age."
The scenery beyond the window offered very little. It was an area starved of water. There was little grass cover. Only an occasional patch of yellow beneath the flat-topped acacia trees could be seen. I was impressed at how well the bone-white thornbush thrived in this arid climate.
"I say, can you see the thornbush just beyond the train?" The gentleman at my table had at last spoken. He was pointing at the window. I said I could. "It is a marvelous protection against the lions. When they built this railway the workers would make thorn fences out of those bushes at night time. The lions were very aggressive in the evening among the workers' camps. My grandfather was an engineer on this railroad when it was constructed. They brought in 32,000 Indian workers to help construct this line between Mombasa and Lake Victoria.
"The death toll was about 10 percent because of accidents, sickness and the lions. It was my grandfather's contention that they would never have had a problem with the lions if the burial parties had only done their job. But when they went into the bush to bury those who had died, they panicked. Because they were most often unarmed, these men became frightened so they did what I guess any of us would do. They dumped the dead bodies and ran. This, of course, introduced the lions to man-eating. They could not leave it alone after that."
I said I had no idea human flesh was so delectable. "It must have been or more Indians would have survived the ordeal," he answered.
"If you want to read a very good book about the building of this railroad you should get "The Lunatic Line, The Building of the East African Railroad."
They may even have a copy on board the train. My grandfather's name is in it in several places, Robert Daniel Guthrey.
"He never really understood why the line was built. It cost over eight million dollars and three thousand lives. It may have had something to do with keeping the Germans away from the headwaters of the Nile River at Lake Victoria. It did transfer a good deal of commerce out of Uganda to the East Coast, but that was a heavy price to pay just to keep the factories in England fully employed."
-Jim Kimball is a Salt Lake travel consultant.