Crossing Kenya's oldest bridge

By Joe Ombuor

Kenya’s oldest bridge is a robust feat of engineering works spanning more than 100 metres across Tsavo River in Taita Taveta County. It lies about 200 kilometres north of Mombasa.

The commercial town of Voi is just 20 kilometres away.

The Railway bridge dates back to 1898 when work on it started.

With hardly any modifications, the 114 year old bridge is still used by trains to date.

It has also become a tourist attraction in its own right.

Construction lasted close to a year because of disruptions by man eating lions. They left more than 100 workers dead, among them 28 coolies from India brought by the Colonial authorities to help in the construction of the railway line. Their technical know how was superior to that of native Africans. The number of Africans killed and eaten remains unknown.

Taita juju

It took the courage, genius and patience of a British soldier and hunter, Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson to gun down the killer cats. Many months of laying traps had not yielded anything.

Lt Col Patterrson had been commissioned by the British East Africa Company to oversee the construction of the important bridge.

To this date, locals believe that these were no ordinary lions, but the work of powerful Taita juju men of the time to keep the enemies of the community at bay. Among these enemies were brutal Arab slave traders from Zanzibar and Pemba.

  Mwasi Mwamburi, 87, says the construction of the railway line from the shores of the Ocean was not taken lightly.

Arab traders usually landed in Mombasa on slave hunting missions. Building of the railway was viewed as a trick by the whites to give the slave traders easy access to the community’s youths.

Man eaters lodge

That is why the community took the decision to use charms against railway builders in the form of the invincible man eating lions.

“The community swore to stall the construction of the bridge. The charms worked really well until the leading witch doctor was betrayed by his rivals out of jealousy and killed by the Wazungu,” the octogenarian says.

Lt Col Patterson managed to kill one of the mysterious