HAIR-RAISING TALE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 73, 28 March 1939, Page 15

HAIR-RAISING TALE.

TARZAN OUTCLASSED. ; NEGRO MISSIONARY IN AFRICA. LONDON. A jungle tale that would make Tarzan's hair stand on end has reached London from a wild sector of northern Rhodesia, in Africa. That he was seized by a rogue elephant, carried in its trunk through fifty miles of jungle, captured by a tribe of ferocious natives and escaped to tell the story is the claim of John Sapper, Negro missionary. It came about when he- visited a native village in northern Rhodesia and found the huts destroyed and the people fleeing in terror from a rogue elephant, an animal whose fierce temper separates it from its herd. Sapper was told that white men had gone after the elephant to kill it, and he set out to find them, following in the beast's tracks. After nothing'was heard of him for several days, a searching party discovered his hat and rifle. After carrying him fifty miles, the elephant threw him to the ground, where an uncivilised tribe found him unconscious. He was held prisoner until he recovered, and then made his escape. He wrote a letter to a friend in London relating his harrowing experience and 'assuring him he was safe at last.