A HAIR-WHITENING HORROR

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 35, 4 November 1933, Page 18

A HAIR-WHITENING HORROR

Weird Tale from Africa

An amazing story of a brave man whose hair turned white in a night when a witch doctor turned himself into a crocodile is told by Mr. Vivian Meik, who has spent many years in Africa and is now in London. Once, when living on the border of Nyasaland and Portugese East Africa, Mr. Meik says he was saved from the fangs of the dreaded black mamba by the spirit of a man 6,000 miles away. “I have no explanation to offer for the incident,” Mr. Meik told a “Sunday Chronicle” representative. “I can only give you the facts. “A padre and I were siting outside my house. Then we went indoors and a servant arrived to tell me that Noorali was on his way to see me. “I was amazed. Noorali had been my servant in Calcutta six years previously, and I had not had a word from him since. “Then Noorali stood in the doorway. He said nothing, but grabbed a heavy thonged whip, and with it slashed to deatli a black mamba at my feet—and disappeared. “The next morning I cabled Calcutta and learned that Noorali had never left

India. He had dreajned I was in trouble, and bad told the local priest that he would like to help me. “I know both the Portugese officers concerned in the witch doctor incident quite well,” said Mr.. Meik. “One was the Intendant and the other the Commandant of a district, and they had been having trouble with a native village. A witch doctor, with reputed great powers, was the cause of the trouble, and the Intendant was ordered to have him shot. “As the Intendant reached the door of his hut he saw the witch doctor change into a crocodile. He shattered the crocodile’s head with a shot. “With the aid of his men he lashed the dead crocodile to a stake. “In the morning he discovered the witch doctor with his head shattered lashed to the post. The body wits buried and the Intendant returned to the village with the Commandant. “As they neared it they saw the witch doctor sitting on top of the grave holding his shuttered head. When he saw the Europeans he started towards them. They fled. The Intendant’s hair turned white.”