Woman Enters Heart of Africa

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 781, 30 September 1929, Page 13

Woman Enters Heart of Africa

BATTLES WITH SAVAGES WOUNDED BY LEOPARD A woman explorer’s adventures in the heart of Africa, which included an attack by a wounded leopard and a night raid by a savage tribe, were related to me when Mr. and Mrs. T. A. Glover arrived at Liverpool in tiis Elder Dempster liner Daru, says a correspondent of the' London “Daily Chronicle.” Mrs. Glover is believed to have penetrated 1,000 miles further into darkest Africa than any other white woman. Mr. and Mrs. Glover went to AYest Africa with two other explorers over two and a-half years ago on an expedition of commercial research, and to collect specimens for the British Museum. Sickness overtook the other two members of the party, and Mr. and Mrs. Glover had to carry on alone. Mr. Glover told me of an exciting adventure which his wife had with a leopard she had shot and wounded m Northern Nigeria. Thinking she had killed the animiil, she was approaching it when it turned savagely upon her, and with its teeth inflicted a serious wound on her leg, from which she suffered for two months. In spite of the pain she managed to kill the animal with another shot. “Our expedition,” Mr. Glover continued, “was the first to reach the hills of Tibesti, between the French and Italian territory in French Equatorial Africa. We got within ten days’ journey of Kufria, the black empire governed by the powerful chief Sidiadras, who is the head of a savage tribe with an armed force of between 5,000 and 6,000 warriors. “It was a hazardous adventure, but we were getting along very well when the soldiers of Sidiadras turned us back. We tried hard to get permission to enter Kufria, but were refused. “Once we were raided during the night by savages on the way to Tibesti, and were reported dead by the French authorities. We put up a big stand against the attackers. My wife and I fought them with our guns from the rocks for three hours. “When dawn broke the raiders cleared off. They were a very hostile Arab tribe known, as the Tibu, and they -were after our silver and our camels. “We hunted for six months in a sleepy sickness area to obtain specimens of the tsetse fly, which carries the disease. I have brought a. lot of specimens home with me. We had malaria and other tropical afflictions, but have pulled through.” When the news reached England early last year that Mr. and Mrs. Glover had both been killed they were actually crossing the Sahara desert.