A REAL TARZAN.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 July 1921, Page 10

A REAL TARZAN.

CHILD TAKEN BY A LEOPARD. GROWS UP WITH LEOPARD CUBS. From time to time the Indian forests yield up to civilisation strange denizens, whose fate and condition recall Mr. Kipling’s Mowgli and the now famous Tarzan. A very interesting case of a male leopard child is reported from the North Cachar Hills, on India’s northeastern frontier, by Mr. Stuart Baker, F.Z.S. At the village of Dhungi Mr. Baker was confronted in the courthouse with protests from a certain native against the proposal that he should furnish his share of the forced labor for roadmending, etc,, which in many of the® less-developed tracts in India takes the place of direct taxation. The man’s story was that his wife had recently died, and that if he left his village to work on the roads his little wild son would run back to the jungle. Mr. Baker accordingly went outside the court to see the "wild child,” and there was a small boy about seven years old, or less, squatting on the ground like a small animal. Looking closer at the child, Mr. Baker saw that he was nearly or entirely blind from some form of cataract, and his body was covered with •the white scars of innumerable healed tiny cuts and scratches. The boy’s father narrated the following story, which Mr. Baker, says the Calcutta correspondent of the Morning Post, fully believes to be true:—

About five years before Mr. Baker saw father and son the Cacheri villagers had found two leopard cubs close to their villages, which they killed. The mother leopard had tracked the murderers of her children back to the village, and had haunted the outskirts for two days. The third day a woman cutting rice in some cultivation close to the village laid her baby boy down on a cloth while she went on with her work. Presently, hearing a cry, she turned round and saw a leopard bounding away and carrying the child with it. Some three years after this event a leopardess was killed close to the village by a sportsman, who brought in the news of his success, together with the information that the leopard had cubs, which he ‘had failed to secure. On hearing this the whole village turned out, and eventually captured two cubs and one child, the boy of Mr. Baker’s story. He was at once identified by his parents, claimed by them, and their claim admitted by the whole village. Subsequently Mr. Baker interviewed the head man, and also the man who actually caught the child, and they both corroborated the father’s tale in every detail. It appeared that at t'he time he was caught the child ran on all four's, almost as fast as an adult man could run, whilst in dodging in and out of bushes and other obstacles he was much cleverer and quicker. His knees, even when Mr. Baker saw him, and when he 'had learnt to move about upright to a great extent, had hard callosities on them and his toes were retained upright almost at right angles to hfe instep. The palms ot his hands and pads of toes and thumbs were also covered with very tough, horny skin. When first caught he bit and fought with everyone who came within reach of him and, although even then affected in his eyes, any village fowl which came within his reach was seized, torn to pieces, and eaten with extraordinary rapidity. His blindness was not, in any way due to his treatment by the leopard, as another child of the same woman a few years older, and the mother also, had both the same form of cataract. At the same time the detective sense of sight may well have intensified his sense of smell, and the loss of the one must have caused him to very more on the other. When caught, the child was in perfect condition, thin but well covered of musele.