QUEER ENCOUNTERS

Evening Star, Issue 20720, 17 February 1931, Page 14

QUEER ENCOUNTERS

ELEPHANTS IN ENGLAND Apparently it is not an uncommon experience to meet an elephant in an English lane. Attracted by a paragraph in a newspaper stating than a constable cycling along a lane had found himself unexpectedly confronted by an ostrich, the editor of the ‘ Countryman ’ offered a prize to the reader who could recall the most unusual experience of a similar nature. The replies are printed in the January number of the ‘ Countryman.’ Elephants head the list easily. One man reports: “ I was walking along a footpath at Wantage, when there suddenly loomed up an elephant, also walking on the footpath. 1 got off.” Through a fog one day at Swanage another reader was astounded to see an elephant. Ho adds: “ Seated on his back was an ‘ Indian,’ who hailed mo with ‘ Quid mornin’.” A Yorkshircraan reports having had his car stopped in a lane “ because an elephant was having a rest.” A quarter of'a milo farther along ho met a distracted youth, who inquired whether ho had seen a stray elephant. A man from Cheshire goes one better, having come across two elephants in a lane. These experiences, however, shrink into insignificance beside the harrowing adventure of Mr E. M. Pyne, who was tramping along a beautiful byroad in Surrey about half-past 9 o’clock in the evening, when ho suddenly heard “ a heavy thudding, shuffling noise—it was caused by four elephants.” Another reader reports having seen four elephants near Windsor, in mid-winter, with six inches of snow on the ground. These elephants were all strays from menageries. Perhaps the best of these peculiar encounters is described by “ E.P.” who writes: “ On a summer day my daughter w'as driving with mo in the depths of the country with not a house or a soul in sight. Wo turned a corner and mot an elephant. It walked slowly past us. ‘ I don’t believe it,’. I said. Wo turned another corner and met two dromedaries. ‘ This is serious,’ I said. ‘ Alligators next, I expect,’ said my daughter. Round the next corner, 100yds away, wo met a camel, and then the rest of the travelling menagerie.” One reader reports that, travelling in the West Highlands, he came across a drove of cattle, and at the head of the drove a man sitting on a samel. The camel had belonged to a circus, and it had been left behind through sickness. The drover had cured it, and had become atached to it, and ho would not part with it. A swan sharing a bicycle with its owner is reported as having been seen in a Midland town. The prize went to Mrs Aikin, of Llangollen, who stated that her brother-in-law, the late Dr C. E. Aikin, was on a walking tour with some friends. They turned off a main road into a field, where the party sat down against a stone wall for lunch. Here one of the party picked up in the grass—a human car. Although inquiry was made there was never any explanation.