AMONG CANNIBALS.

Waikato Times, Volume 100, Issue 16817, 8 June 1926, Page 2

AMONG CANNIBALS.

EKOLiSHWOMAN'S ADVENTURES. (From a Correspondent.) LONDON, April 21. Lady Dorothy Mills, daughter of the Earl of Orl'ord, whose previous travels have taken her to such out-of-the-way placcs as Timbuctoo, Hayti, and Kurdistan, returned to Loudon yesterday morning from a seven weeks' journey in the interior of Liberia, the black republic on the West Coast of Africa. Lady Dorothy told a Daily Mail reporter that she was not only the first white woman to cross Liberia up to the French frontier but that, in many parts, she was actually the lirst 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 flesh except human llcsh. " The Human Leopards." The interior of Liberia, Lady Dorothy staled, is dominated by a terrible society called "The Human Leopards." It is a secret cannibal society and the members get themselves up to resemble leopards. They put on their backs wicker-work, through which their natural black shows with the effect of leopard spots. Tiiey paint their chests white, they wear.iron claws on their hands, and they imitate the crouching gestures and the growls of wild beasts. The members of this society lie in wait for wanderers and take them off to be slain and eaten. Nor are they above devouring their closet relatives —a husband his wife, or a mother her child. Lary Dorothy lived among people many of whom were arrested for such crimes. The whole of Liberia, apart from a 20-miles deep strip along the coast, is virgin forest, gorgeous with orchids, and tropical butterflies, very damp, hot and subject lo thunderstorms. These forests are traversed by narrow paths, and, in the words of Lady Dorothy, walking through these forests is like "walking through the hottest house at Kew." Natives Terrified. For days on end Lady Dorothy scarcely saw the sky. Sometimes she camped out in the forest, sometimes in native villages, and altogether, sue walked, or was carried in a hammock by native carriers, a distance of about 51>11 mile's. Many of the natives were ■terrified al the sight of a white person and lied into the bush at her approach, but she was never in any way molested.

A black cook, a black steward, and a black interpreter-guide (who could only see, without glasses, in the dark) accompanied her throughout the whole journey.

Apart from one attack of malaria, Lady Dorothy suffered no sickness and enjoyed her travels immensely.