A PERILOUS VENTURE

Hokitika Guardian, 28 September 1926, Page 4

A PERILOUS VENTURE

A. A A U V V MAN-EATERS THIRTY FEET LONG. Homo of iho biggest big-game limit ing thrills ever experienced should hi forthcoming shortly, up in t'hc bare »un-scorcliecl mountains of the unin habited interior of a lonely island it the Dutch East Indies, writes “At Explorer’’ in the ".Manchester Guar diau.” Two expeditions a re racin' thither to try to trap the last great uucapturcd wild beast in the worh and bring two or three of him bad alive for exhibition in zoological gar ileus. 'll!.' creature is a fierce, man-iatin; lizard, thirty feet long when full grown There is reason to believe that, when more widely distributed in aucion times, it may have travelled westwan along the prehistoric land bridge t< Asia, which is now represented by tin chain of long, narrow islands between Timor and Singapore, and. estahlishin; itself in similar mountain lairs ii China, Cave been the original dragoi that filled the early Chinese with sue! dread and pervaded Chinese niyllining; with dragon-lore. .Mr Jesse Metcalf, ol New York, i: leading one of the expeditions, am Air and Airs \V. G. Burden, also o New York, the other. Airs Burden h going to try to take moving picture. l of the monsters. The place where this great lizan survives its monstrous proiiistorh cousins is the island of Ivomodo. in the Suiula Sea. between Flores and Sum bawa, some 100 miles south-east ol Borneo. AS EAST AS A MOTOR-CAR. The last time 1 was out in the .Malay Archipelago I managed to obtain, from various Dutch colonial officials, tidings of some personal experiences with tin creature. Only little ones have hither to been killed, for the simple reasoi that the big ones, which 'have several times been sighted, go killing on theii on account with such zest that it is very difficult to induce natives tc accompany a white man after them. They can move as fast as a .motor-ear, and they are quite fearless in going to the defence of their young. Their tough, scaly hide is impervious to native weapons, and even with a highvelocity rifle it is hard to g’cfc a shot Cuit will stop their onrush. Lieutenant J. IC. H. van Stoyn van Honsbroek, when Civil Administrator of the coastal settlement at Reo, on Flores, crossed to Komodo, investigating' the rumours which had reached him, shot a young “ dragon ” seven feet long, and preserved the skin. Me was unable to obtain one ol the big ones. Me found t'hc natives very reluctant to participate in bis bunting. They called the monster the I’oea.iadasat. or Crocodile of the Land. It is no crocodile, however, for examination of several skills have shown clearly that it is a giant member of the Vermins family of lizards, it urns a short snout and sharp teeth. A kind of rais-' ed keel runs down the middle of the hack, rising, at the tail into a five-j peaked crest somewhat resembling that of our own little pond newt, it slashes right and left with this tail w 'on angry, ft has a yellow tongue, nearly a yard long, which, on occasion, it darts in and out of its mouth. (The ( liinese dragon, you will recollect, is portrayed with a long yellowish or rcddis'i tongue, or a yellowish or reddish llame darting from its open jaws.) An amazing thing about it is that it !s deaf, though not “ stone ” deaf. But its neck is so limber that its constantly twisting and turning head makes the task of approaching it unnoticed one of great difficulty. YOUNG ONES BAGGED. After Lieutenant van Stoyn van llenshroek’s visit, a local chief, the Raja l1 '. Bitiara, accompanied by a ua,ive collector sent out by the Dutch museum at Buitenzorg, or Java, bagged our young ones, nine feet, seven feet ind a half and three feet (two) relepetively. Sergeant Beker. of the Juteh colonial army, bagged a thirteenbot.e’r. but was unable to shoot one of he big fellows, as he found the risk no great to he tackled single-handed. ■I err Aldegon. another Dutchman, shut ome young. Bike robber barons of old. the ‘dragons” live up aloft on bare bills, there they can see every moving creauro long before it can reach them. < ’heir sleeping quarters are in bamboo i hickets around springs at the head : f rocky gullies. Here they spend the i ights in lairs hollowed out underover- I anging rocks, awakening at dawn to rowl for their prey. The risks of adding them can be appreciated when : is mentioned tliat they sometimes > o about in parties of a dozen or mote, I fiat tliere are no trees to climb, and i tint, raising themselves on their bind 1

less, the nduiis could quite easily make a mouthful c; a man as high up a rock or pole as t'he top of a motor-bus. Aldegon “ ground-baited ” for them with carcases of wild boar. The only prudent way of going after the big o’.ics would he in an armoured car or a tank'. The two expeditions are not to he envied the job of mollifying one (or more) sufficiently to induce it to emigrate, alive, to the United States!