LOST IN SWAMP

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 863, 6 January 1930, Page 13

LOST IN SWAMP

CROCODILES SCARED WITH STICK NO FOOD FOR THREE DAYS A graphic story of how he was lost, in an East African swamp was told by j Mr. Granville Squiers in a lecture in | aid of the King Edward Hospital Fund | at Westminster City School. “Sooner or later everybody gets lost j in Africa,” Mr. Squiers said, "and my turn came when I was manager of a mangrove timber concession at-Rufiji, Tanganyika Territory. “I tried to cut through an uncharted corner of the Rufiji Delta—the delta which has eight mouths, with mangrove swamps in between —and the motor-boat in which I was travelling with some natives got stuck in a creek. I sent the boat back and pushed on alone on foot, intending (to get in touch with some Arab dhows. “I came to a little plain of salt and mud, into which I sank over my ankles As I went on the mud got hotter and hotter, and in the end I had to run for my life. It was only for five minutes or so, but in that time my feet were in a terrible condition. “The boat was now out of hail, and I had lost my direction. I had no food or drink for three and a-half days, and it is a miracle that I am alive to tell my tale, and that I kept my reason. “Soon after the sun was at the meridian I established a due east direction, which I knew would bring me to the coast. The distance I covered was not more than eight miles, but the" ‘going’ was terrible. “My great fear was of being eaten by one of the giant crocodiles that infest these swamps. I saw 20 of them during the first day, but by day the crocodiles are arrant cowards, and I scared them by making a noise with my stick. At night I lit bonfires and thus slept in safety. “For food and drink I sucked a shirt button that I cut off. . . . Once I sat up to my neck in a creek to let the water soak into my body through the pores. All the time I kept my pistol cocked, for crocodiles. ... It was sheer will power that kept me going, and when I got to the coast it was will power that saved me. “I heard natives talking, but I could not see them, and if I had called out they would probably have sheered off. So I got up into a tree and just willed them to come to me. The spell worked. “For years afterward I dreamt of it as a nightmare.”