MY FIGHT WITH A PANTHER

Otago Witness, Issue 3510, 21 June 1921, Page 26

MY FIGHT WITH A PANTHER

David Livingstone, tho African expa.ier, s-aid th/tL he toll a pleasurable sensation when seized by a lion. 1 did not experience any pleasure in the jaws of a panther writes a big game hunter in the Daily Mail.

Ihe animal had been shot through tho body, and 1 was following it up. Thee© ca t s will conceal themselves in an increclib.y small space, and the boast suddenly rushed out upon mo from a depression in Bie ground, in which it had been invisible from a few yards’ distance. . It dill not spring, but rushed at me, giving vent to coughing roars. 1 fired two shots, but failed to stop it, and in a moment I was borne to' the ground. The panther’s breath, tainted by the putrid flesh on which it had been feeding, was very fcul when it put it-s face in mine. I raised an arm r 0 proto t my throat, and its teeth met. in fleshy part of the forearm. The panther was a very large specimen, and its weight was sufficient to bear me to the ground, bringing me heavily on the back of my head in a thorn bush. This pulled what was left of my arm out of its mouth, whereupon ii embedded ihe claws of one paw in the calf of my leg, and seized my thigh in its jaws, the long canine teeth penetrating some 2in. When it left, me it walked off, turning to look again before entering the jungle, where it presently died. When it turned its head T thought for a moment that it was coming hack to mak<s another meal or to lap up ihe blood, of which there was plenty about. 1 was laid up for about six weeks, and poisonous wounds are very painful. No, I cannot agree with Dr Livingstone ! I have seen several men seized, and I should say that their experiences were equally painful. One was seized by the waist by a tiger, and his entrails were exposed. ITc told me how it happened, but was not in a condition to discuss the question, although he lived a few hours. Another wa.s bitten and clawed in the back and shoulders by a tiger—quite close to me. He did not exnrrss any pleasure either, and was six months in recovering. A tiger l it off the top of a man’s skull just as one takes the top <.(F an egg; the corpse was in a sitting. posture, and his remarks are not on record. The body of a boy, half devoured by a panther, was found in the fork of a tree, which served as a larder: he had no opportunity of describing his sensations. A.nother boy. who was seized by the throat and devoured close to a village near my camp, had not time to speak.