ENGLISH LADY AMONG CANNIBALS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 17079, 7 July 1926, Page 5

ENGLISH LADY AMONG CANNIBALS

DAUGHTER, OF EARL BACK FROM TRIP IN LIBERIA. LONDON, May 20. Lady Dorothy Mills, daughter of (he Earl of Oxford, whose previous travels have taken her to such out-of-the-way places as Timbuetoo, Hayti and Kurdistan, has just returned to London from a seven-weeks’ journey m the interior of Liberia, the black republic on the west coast of Africa. Lady Dorothy said that she was not only the first white woman to cross Liberia up to the French frontier, Imt that, in many parts, she was actually the first white person of any kind the natives had ever seen. For about five weeks she travelled through country peopled entirely by cannibals, who dislike all He,sit except human flesh. The interior of Liberia, Lady Dorothy stated, is dominated by a terrible society called the “Human Leopards.” It is a secret cannibal society, and the members get themselves up to resemoh leopards. They put on their backs wickerwork, through which their natural black shows with the effect of leopard spots. They paint their chests white, they wear iron claws on their handsy. and they imitate the crouching gestures and the growls of wild beasts. The members of this society lie in wait for wanderers arid take them off to he slain and eaten. Nor are they above devouring their closest relatives—a husband his wife, or a mother her child. Lady Dorothy lived among people many of whom have been arrested for such crimes. Apart from one attack of mn : unn, Lady Dorothy suffered no sickness, a id enjoyed her travels immensely.