QUEER DENIZENS OF AFRICA’S JUNGLES.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3128, 31 July 1922, Page 7

QUEER DENIZENS OF AFRICA’S JUNGLES.

i I' Africa is the “mystery” continent. : It is there that the most curious and unlikely animals and human beings may he found—from real giants, two of whom can kill and eat an elephant, to two-toed monkey men, who live in treetops. From the “eppo,” a species of antelope that climbs trees, to the hippo horse, half hippopotamus and half horse that is a survival of a species of gigantic monster, the fossil remains of which are dug up in North America. In Central Africa, as in the great valley of the Amazon and the hinterlands of the Guianas up in the northeast of South America, there is in the dense roof of the lofty jungle overhead another world, unknown, unseen and forever far out of the reach of puny man, a world about which we know very little, for it is populated hy a host of creatures that never come down to earth. The African natives tell strange and gruesome stories about some of these living things. For instance, they declare there is an animal, something of the leopard kind but striped like a zebra, that cannot face the daylight, so used it is to the twilight overhead. Selous, the great hunter and explorer, saw an apron made of its skin, which was wholly unlike any skin even he had over seen. This animal is particularly fierce and agile, attacks the natives from behind, and then, having bitten them at the hack of the neck, sucks their brains out as the weasel does the blood, of a rabbit. In the same part of unknown Africa a race of tree being are said to exist, who live in the tops of the trees and are sheltered from enemies by the dense foliage. These folk, two-toed and claw-handed, pass from tree to tree with the ease and activity of monkeys, and are of a particularly ferocious nature. Then there are dwarfs in Central Africa which live like wild animals among the rocks and bushes. I heir projecting jaws and protruding lips, slender, ill-shaped legs and protruding bellies give them the true apelike appearance. They are singularly timid and lice at the sight of strangers. As mysterious is the race of gigantic natives in the unknown deserts north of Faso Nviro and the Lorian Swamp, East Africa.. This strange race is known by tradition to the natives now inhabiting the land west of the Julia in.the north and the Tana in the south. _ I heir name appears to be “the Maanthiule, and tradition has it they are Christians and originally came from Abysima. Until pestilence and native wars broke them they are said to have cultivated large areas, used 1 irrigation! to raise crops, owned camels and lived in .rrca- circular houses, the huge stones of which testify to their strength. Their hoes, it has been stated, were so large, and strong that a local native of the present day could not lift one. Two. of this giant race could not only Kill an elephant with spears but cat it up afteiward. . Just as the data regarding these giants cannot -be denied, neither can data concerning the hippo bored be cast aside merely because they refer to what appears to be a survivor of prchistoiu ages. A short time ago the press was announcing that an explorer in Africa had been put to flight by a weird and formidable animal such as we come across in a nightmare or a dream. The fugitive stated his -strange enemy must have bad a bodv more than twenty feet long and of great girth, an upright tusk on its nose and with the fore parts of a horse and the hind parts of a. cow. An explorer, H. E. bee, first encountered it, though the natives have always spoken of its existence. He was creeping into position for a shot at a hippopotamus when he saw in the background of the pool, slowly and meditatively chewing water weed, the strangest animal yet known. On its nose it carried two very sharp pointed horns or tusks, not curved but sticking up straight. The front of its head had all the appearance of a hippo, but the chocks and ears and month were like those of a horse. It had a. man© of red hair, and while its uppei body was that of the hippo, yet the legs and feet were those of the horse. Its neck was not short and thick like a hippo’s, but gracefully arched and elongated like that of the horse. Us tail, long and bushy, was covered with red hairs. Leo shot this amazing animal and found it measured over twenty-one feet in length, with a girth of eighteen, fet. Skeletons of a creature of similar build have been unearthed in America.