TIBETAN ADVENTURES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20644, 16 February 1929, Page 23

TIBETAN 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 n r t sure whether he was laughing at her or wjth 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 favourably known to the abbot that Mrs Atkinson was allowed within the sabred precincts. Censers were swung on her arrival, so 1 that the 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 priests 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 prayei, 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 day light developing tank. In Mrs Atkinson’s Northampton- home there ds 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 the years before the war, aiming for bull’s-eyes—-and getting them—at the Naintial range, where she won many prizes. H el <3 are realistic alligators, crocodiles, a 19-foot python, stags, leopards, 14 tigers und 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 some- * thing 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 the sixth shot, and he, too, gazes wih glassy eyes at his stuffed fellows in her big museum.