Wild Beasts in India

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22967, 19 February 1938, Page 8 (Supplement)

Wild Beasts in India

QUR own summers, although in .parts very hot, are not unbearable, but in places within the tropics the heat is like that in a hothouse —very, steamy. If white women and children in India were to stay down on the plains all through the summer their health would suffer. Even men cannot stay there too long, but, though they cannot get away, they generally arrange that their wives and children spend the worst of the hot weather in the hills, where the air is lighter and the days and nights cooler. Some time ago 1 read of a Woman who had a thrilling adventure while she was staying at one of these hills stations. The bungalow where she was living was in a rather lonely part, but as the woman had her two dogs with her, she felt perfectly safe. All the rooms in the bungalow opened into one another and led to the bathroom and then to the verandah.

One night, after having chained her dogs in the bathroom, leaving their three pups with them, she bolted the outside door of the bathroom, and to make it even safer she put a big block of stone against it. An hour or so later .she was awakened by a loud noise, followed by the two dogs rushing into her room. They had had such a fright that they had broken their chains. Outside the bathroom she could hear loud and fierce growls. Three men servants were supposed to be sleeping on the verandah to guard the family, but when the ayah went to call them they were not there. They had gone to sleep in the huts a short distance from the bungalow. The

noise outside grew worse, and, beside the loud growls, there was the sound of a heavy animal throwing its body against the door, trying to smash it in. The three inside were in great danger, but the ayah ottered to go to the huts, which were on the opposite fjide of the compound or yard. The little girl was very frightened, as you may imagine, and was sobbing as she clung to her mother. At last the nurse came back, bringing with her the three men, who, although each armed with a heavy spear, were trembling and trying to draw back; they seemed poor, weak creatures, hardly able to defend themselves.

She was amused, 111 spite of her fright, when they began by letting out the most unearthly veil. It seemed to her a queer way to attack a wild beast, but to her surprise and, delight, it was evidently the right thing to do, for the beast fled straight away to the jungle, so without any attacking the fight was won. 'J'he next morning, in the soft sand outside the door, were the tracks of a panther, and he had been in earnest in trying to get in, for the door had been forced open some inches in spite of the heavy stone that had been put against. it. It was a good thing that the stone had been put there, for the weight of the great animal had smashed a panel of the door and broken the bolt. Had it once got in nothing could have saved the woman and her little girl and the ayah, who by her brave and loyal act of going out to the huts to bring the men, saved the lives of all three.