SOMETHING HAPPENS IN UMTALI

Evening Star, Issue 21636, 3 February 1934, Page 5

SOMETHING HAPPENS IN UMTALI

Life in a New Zealand suburb is proverbially peaceful, where nothing momentous is ever supposed to happen. A herd of wild elephants, for instance, does not suddenly appear in its midst; but not so in South Africa. It was the fierce bush fires that drove a herd of wild elephants into the suburbs of Umtali, in Rhodesia, and at first the rightful inhabitants were somewhat scared. But the police put a cordon round the elephant area, and as the animals seemed quite quiet a large crowd of curious onlookers gradually accumulated to the sound of the clicking of cameras. But the suburb did not want to be permanently elephant-ridden, and so six trained elephants were borrowed from a travelling circus and sent to persuade their wild brethren to leave peaceably. Instead of retiring, however, the wild elephants charged fhe circus elephants, and then proceeded to charge the sightseers as well, and a grand stampede of suburbanites followed. Finally the fire that had brought the elephants was used to drive them away, the police setting alight the suburb’s own stretch of bush. /