LEOPARD'S FIGHT FOR LIFE

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3051, 12 April 1917, Page 6

LEOPARD'S FIGHT FOR LIFE

THRILLING .ENCOUNTER IN EAST AFRICA.

A thrilling 45 minutes' battle royal between a British officer, an army doctor, and a fierce full-grown female leopard, m "German" East Africa, is described m a remarkable letter from IJr. Ivor Haslem, who is serving witli the British forces in the Kaiser's last colony. Dr. Haslem, at the time of the occurrence,,was,riding behind Lieuten-ant-Bouwer in the thick bush, a mule wagon with six native "boys" following at a funeral pace behind. The lieutenant suddenly turned his horse and quietly told the doctor that he had just seen a big animal -which might be either lion or leopard. "When, first 1 saw the leopard," writes Dr. Haslem, "it was flat on its belly and looked small—it afterwards proved to be a full-grown female. Bouwer stepped forward to open the branches of tho thicket, when, suddenly, there was an awful growl, and out charged the leopard right past me. I fired before I knew almost, but thought I missed. It was found later that I had just grazed her hindquarters. "The injury made her run lik'e blazes, and to turn into a nasty-looking lot of low bushes. Bouwer-and I were just riding around the outskirts of this uninviting tangle, when the beast charged straight at Bouwer, whose horse wheeled. The leopard got on its back. Bouwer swung round and jammed his rifle down its throat, but could not fire as ho held the gun by the stock and had the reins in the other hand. The horse sank down on its haunches, and with a yell Bouwer slid off his horse with the leopard, who bolted back into the bush.

I was not twenty yards away when it all happened—in the flash of a second or two. Bouwer got up groaning badly with pain. We made the 'boys' throw bundles of burning grass on.the edge of the bush. Soon one of them emerged,-running and stumbling, with the leopard trying to get a deathgrip. I ran (on loot) at an angle with the pair,.when the leopard suddenly bounded away from the 'boy' and ran under a tree round which there was no grass. She looked about as if to ask 'Who next?' but I had the 'bead' on her heart, and sent my bullet through it. To make sure I lired a dum-dum bullet: through the beast's head, and pulled her from underneath t.he thorns by the tail. That was the end of threequarters of ah hour of sport as exciting and enjoyable as any 1 have ever experienced.

"Bouwer collapsed as soon as the excitement was over, after shaking hands with me to congratulate me on 'a pretty shot.' We made him a straw bed on the wagon and, sent my native servant on my horse to fetch an ambulance. The ambulance which came to meet us had a lion running along the track .in front of it, in' the glare of the acetylene lights, 'not more than twenty yards in front,' and they only lost it in one of the turns of the road."