MARVELLOUS ANIMAL STORIES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 5, 7 January 1899, Page 1 (Supplement)

MARVELLOUS ANIMAL STORIES.

In the current issue of 'Wide World' magazine are published some truly remarkable animal stories. Prom the collection we take two, which are somewhat uncommon, and which would tax thebelief of the most credulous. TOUCHING A MAN-EATING TIGER, This is the story of a blind man who, unarmed, laid his hand upon a free tiger and lived, unhurt, to tell the tale: lived to wish that he were dead. It is the most extraordinary adventure even in the thrilling annals of beast-ridden. India / The:'tiger was a man-eater of Mysore, for which the Government had offered a reward of 500 rupees. Many were his exploits. He would bound "into a crowd of travellers on, the high road and-bear one of them away, or snatch the driver from the seat" of a creaking bullock-cart. He would even.,,enter villages and break-into hutsv.witli great blows- of his powerful paws"and drag forth his prey. Tfeere was a poor Dher, a low caste man, who was hot allowed to live in the village, but dwelt with his wife and baby in a low hut on the outskirts. He was poor, extremely poor, and blind. One night —Colonel. G. H. Trevor tells the story —this man was waked by a strange shuffling, snuffing noise in the hut. Upon the nameless cdours of an Indian interior two new smells impressed themselves. He knew what they meant later. The man called: no voice answered. Night was as day to his sightless eyes. He crawled about the hut with a blind man's noiseless step, feeling his way with tremulous, extended hand. He neared the corner of the hut where his wife lay, prone upon the floor, and stooped. Wrist deep his inquiring hand thrust itself into deep fur.' . In a flash he knew; he had heard and smelled a tiger in his 'hut; had punched the great man-eater's ribs. He waited for death. One startled instant the tiger waited, then bounded-Lfrom the hut, quick to suspect danger in the blind man's apparently bold advance, leaving the man unscathed. The Dher was left alone. Lower he stooped, until his hands rested upon the lifeless forms of his wife and child; were dabbled .-in the T.e,d . flood that gushed from their mangled bodies w-here the great- brute's noiseless paw had fallen. ORYX VERSUS LION. Mid-Africa and East Africa, climateexcepted,. are* still" the sportsman's paradise. •■' I In Somaliland and Gerniau East Africa are found the largest herds of wild antelopes. And here occurred the thrilling tight between an oryx and a lion, which a returned traveller thus describes: — 'The oryx-spietzbock, the Boers call him, is a graceful antelope with extremely long, slender, sharp horns. He is not much afraid of any of his forest neighbours for six reasons. Four of these are his legs; two are bis horns. 'African hunters have often seen antelopes grazing in full sight of a lion and making no effort to get away, knowing that their flight w-ould be swifter than the lion's charge. Unless .the lion can catch an antelope at the outset he must seek auothe. dinner. It is a contest of quiaiaiess rather than strength. 'I once by rare chance saw a lion in the act of leaping upon a superb male oryx. The animal was grazing quietly near the edge of the veldt and the lion had crept up unseen. 'In the moment that the lion sprang the oryx saw him. It was too late to run. But. like a flash the oryx turned his nose to the ground a:id threwr his mighty horns forward. 'The lion fell fairly upon their sharp and slender tips. In a moment the slender body of the oryx was crushed to the ground, but the lion fell with k**_i, the horns of the plucky animal driven clean through the brute's body as you mi«-__._ skewer a bit of meat.} 'They died together. When I ran up I found the lion bleeding to death, the oryx dead —his neck broken by ;

j the fall. I have his head mounted. i the horns still reddened from their I passage through the huge body of the murderous cat. I have never _._en a j beast die more bravely.' I !___!_____!_ *^_____£____^*