WOMEN PIRATES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 72, 26 March 1932, Page 3 (Supplement)

WOMEN PIRATES.

TERROR AT SEA.

AMAZON'S JEWELLED SWORD

PERILS OF CHINESE WATERS

She is so tall, so well built and so graceful in her movements that a London or Paris dress designer would pay anything to secure her services as a mannequin, ibut Madame Li, the Cantonese Amazon, would scarcely think the job worth while. She prefers to be a pirate. Legends have grown thick as autumn leaves about the mysterious personality of this female Captain Kidd, who commands a band of women pirates infesting the China seas. Miss Marian Moore, an Englishwoman just returned to London from an adventurous yachting tour off the coast of Cochin China, has revealed the real facts.

A blighted love romance, Miss Moore said, was the cause of it all. Madame Li's fiance was captured by bandits, 'held to ransom and, when the ransom was not forthcoming, executed. "From that hour Madame Li swore vengeance against mankind," Miss Moore declared. "She organised her crew of pirate women and, sailing in a ship which they stole, they now prowl about the seas in the neighbourhood of Hongkong, striking fear into the hearts of both natives and foreigners. Amazing Personality. "She is an amazing personality, this woman pirate. She wears flowing robes and carries a jewelled sword. But she very seldom uses the sword. Her tactics usually are to kidnap a wealthy man or woman from some pleasure yacht and hold them to ransom. Some of Madame's women followers wear breeches and highlogged 'hunter's boots. Others dress in European women's clothes, with short skirts and silk stockings. "It was off the coast of Saigon that we encountered Madame Li's band. We 'had put in on our yacht for a day or two, and 1 wanted to engage a Chinese maid. I did engage one, but we eventually discovered that she was in league with Madame Li and was friendly with some Chinese men we had among our crew. Late that night, as we were cruising around preparatory to making away, we. found that the little maid, Ah Sin, and her men friends were concocting a plot to throw us into the power of the women pirates. English Party's Escape. "Wo discovered the plot just in time. In the distance we saw Madame Li's famous junk approaching, and, if we had not been prepared in time, we might have been boarded and made prisoners. The pirates' method of boarding a ship is to hook on their junk with great poles which have hooks attached to them. They come alongside with these poles, and before you know where you are they are swarming on the deck.

"We spotted Madame Li herself standing up on the deck of her junk, stately as a queen, and "holding her naked sword on her shoulder, just as a man would hold a rifle. Then we made off at full speed, pursued by the junk. We ran into a typhoon and our yacht was nearly wrecked, hut we escaped unhurt. Terrible tales of the tortures inflicted by this outlaw woman on her prisoners are told in Hongkong.

"But there is another story told, too, of how she captured a wealthy young American and, because she said he bore a striking resemblance to her lost lover, she treated him with the greatest kindness and set him free. A handsome reward has been offered by the Government for the capture of this notorious woman, but she hag so far eluded all attempts to round her <up."