MOTOR-CYCLIST HAD RACE WITH PANTHER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18468, 21 May 1928, Page 15

MOTOR-CYCLIST HAD RACE WITH PANTHER.

TELLS OF EXPERIENCES ON TOUR OF WORLD. (Special to the “Star.”) LONDON. April 9. Escorted by 200 motor-cyclists, who met him at Kingston. Mr S. T. Glanfield. of Rosedew Road, Hammersmith, yesterday reached London after an tight months’ tour round the world with a 3} h.p. motor-cycle and sidecar. During his tour he crossed the Syrian Desert and also traversed Australia from north to south. The latter journey took him six weeks and provided plenty of adventure. “Over part of it I had to wait each day for the sun to bake the mud,” he •aid. “and I frequently had to dig the machine out. Crocodfl* Unearthed “Once when digging I unearthed a half-buried crocodile. I ran one way and it went the other. in India I suddenly discovered a panther racing beside me. I ini creased my speed to forty miles an I hour, but it still kept level with jumps af fifteen or twenty yards. Bib.. a

“I then went for all I was worth, and the animal disappeared.” During the greater part of his journey, which was on a Rudge-Whit worth combination, Mr Glanfield was accompanied on another machine by FlightSergeant S. W. Sparkes, an Air Force pilot attached to the flying school at Sealand, Chester, who got special leave to make the round-the-world test. A Hold-up Comedy. “When I got to Arizona,” he «=aid yesterday, “they told me that hold-ups still occurred. Turning a corner, I came across two villainous-looking men wearing sombreros. They waved and gesticulated, but I put on speed and flashed past them. “Then there came a rain of stones and missiles in the ravine through which I was passing, and I put on still more speed. “Round the next corner I met two more men, one of whom was waving- a flag. “I stopped, and then found that the men at each end of the ravine were posted to warn travellers of blasting operations, and I happened to have raced when a charge being