TIBETIAN ADVENTURES

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 24, 29 January 1929, Page 15

TIBETIAN ADVENTURES

AN INTREPID WOMAN

To be a woman and to be the first person to make a Tibetan monk laugh in 25 years is no mean achievement. This, however, is what Mrs. St. John Atkinson did (states a Sydney paper.) And to this day she is not sure whether he was laughing at her or with her It happened at Western Tibet, at Hemis, the second largest monastery in the world, and it was because her father, Sir John Hewett, distinguished as the Lieutenant-Governor of the United Provinces of India, was so favourable known to the Abbot that Mrs. Atkinson was allowed within the sacred precincts.

Censers were swung on her arrival, so that ihe atmosphere should be purified for so honoured a guest, and then —the highest tribute that can be paid to a visitor--the monks laid a white silken scarf about her shoulders. ■ This was one of the most treasured gifts which she took away, and other presents from the holy man were a wooden begging bowl, a turquoise pen case, such as the preists use, and, most wonderful of all—a Tibetan prayer drum. This is made of two human skulls covered with skin, and fastened together with turquoises. Prom the top comes a piece of'string, weighted with a little knob of sealing wax, and the beating of the wax against the drum is considered a prayer, no matter whether the devout one is praying or merely thinking of secular things. Other gifts on her return journey to India included two live sheep, live chickens, sugar, and dried apricots. On his guest's departure, the Abbot had a request to make. Some time before he had been given a camera. And although he did not speak English and had never been out of his mountain fastness, his desire was for a daylight developing tank.

In Mrs. Atkinson's Northampton home there is a museum, and in it there is ample testimony to her straight eye and steady hand, not to mention evidence of ' the hours she spent as a girl, in tlie years before the war, aiming for trails-eyes:—and getting them—at the Nainital range, where she won many prizes

Here are realistic alligators, crocodiles, a 19 feet python, stags, leopards, 14 tigers, and bears, all brought down by the gun of this courageous huntswoman. Mrs. Atkinson will not forget the day when she was out on her elephant, and her mahout pointed to something moving' in the long grass. It was a leopard. Her first shot missed.

The leopard charged the elephant, who put his head down and went backward. Then 'the leopard was temporarily out of sight while Mrs. Atkinson hung on to the sides of the howdah. Eventually he went down to thf> sixth shot, and he, too, gaEes with glassy eyes at his stuffed fellows in her Mg museum. '