STALKED BY A TIGER.

Shannon News, 22 September 1925, Page 4

STALKED BY A TIGER.

THE GUN THAT FAILED. INDIAN’S GREAT HEROISM. Th, e Great War called forth acts which won the V.C. for sons of India. The war of the jungle Las aroused a deed of native heroism which has been signalised by the gift of that V.C. of civil life, the Albert Medal. It is not customary for natives of India to battle with tigers, but a man of Gond, named Veladai Sammai, has done so, not,as a display of prowess, but to save the life of a fellow creature. ~

Veladia Sammai is the native servant of an English forestry official in India, and was with his master in the wilds.’ They were returning for the night, when suddenly a tiger, which nad stalked them unperceived, sprang on the Englishman’s back,, seizes him by the neck in its terrible jaws, and began to drag him to its lair in the Jungle. Sammai dashed at the beast, placed the muzzle of his master’s gun against its body, and pulled the trigger. But he is only a gun-bearer, not a master of the weapon, and a safety catch was in operation which he did not understand. The gun did not go off. The brave native dropped the gun, and, with valorous shouting and beating of hands and arms, startled the man'eater into retreat.

Then Sammai got his master on to his feet again, and began to help and urge him to flight. The white "man was badly mauled, bleeding profusely, and weak from the shock. But, aided by the faithful Sammai, he struggled along, faint and slow, but surely. They had two miles to go, a weary, staggering march, and the tiger prowled after them the whole way. It followed, suspicious, stealthy, determined. As often as it approached dangerously, however ,the native renewed his outcries and threatenings with his arms, and so, kept it at a distance.

Little by little the long journey was covered ,and at last the white man tottered into camp and safety, preserved by as fine a bit of native courage and resource as is to be found in the history of the relations between Briton and Indian in the home of the tiger. / The King has conferred the Albert Medal on the valiant Indian, whose name now goes all over the world in the pages of that official document of thg Empire, the London Gazette. But all India will know of it already by that wireless word-of-mouth telegraphy which runs in the wilds on foot.