Our Town, April 29, 1953

"Jungle Girl", Lourenco Marques, Mozambique, Portuguese East Africa.–

Dash it all, chaps, for a moment there I was tempted to chuck the whole thing my wife, my children, my stamp collectionand simply run away with the Jungle Girl to find the vast ivory treasures of Mozambique. 

Think of it! Just the two of us out there on safari, sitting around the campfire after the hunt, enjoying a feast of elephant-trunk stew. 

But perhaps I'd better start at the beginning. From the moment I arrived here in Lourenco Marques people advised me that if I wanted a story I ought to interview the Jungle Girl. 

Naturally my little pig eyes were instantly aflame. In no time at all I was facing this remarkable creature in person.

 Off-hand I don't know which would scare me most on safari, the elephants or the lady herself. When she's not out after pachyderms, the Jungle Girl is known more prosaically as Mrs. Anne Manners. She's thirtyish, half Portuguese, half Scottish, five-foot seven, figure like Cyd Charisse, ebony hair, green eyes. 

Small wonder, with that inventory, that I can barely make out my notes. We got this "Jungle Girl" thing cleaned up first. 

Seems that an American publishing outfit with the unlikely name of Heroic Comics heard about the exploits of Anne and her ex-husband, Harry, the best-known elephant slayer in Mozambique, and featured a series of their adventures. The name stuck.

Since shedding Harry, the Jungle Girl has been slightly dormant, writing a book that includes a chapter on the sex life of the elephant that's the warmest prose since "Forever Amber", but she's open to offers if anyone cares to share a safari to locate the Quazine. 

That's the native name for the impenetrable jungle in darkest Mozambique where elephants go to die. There's a tidy fortune there in ivory. Getting into the place or, worse, getting the tusks out, is a problem that no one yet has licked, but the raw material for piano keys and billiard balls retails here at a cool $3 a pound (some tusks run up to 130 pounds), and I, for one, am working on it. 

On the regular hunts for live elephants, Anne advised me, the carcass can usually be sold for $40 or $50 to tea plantations as food for the native workers. 

Elephant steak is okay, she says. The heart, which weighs up to a hundred pounds, is considered, a delicacy. She herself prefers to use the trunk, which has a mushroom flavor, for her own favorite stew (dice the pink flesh of one elephant trunk, add onions, hot chile, cloves, simmer for 10 hours). 

The Jungle Girl says the real elephant in the bush is a far cry from the docile circus breed. 

Twice she's been charged by bull elephants. "You never know when it will happen," she exclaimed. "In the thick jungle you must crouch close to the ground to see their legs under the heavy foliage. 

"I'll never forget that first charge. I heard the great feet pounding boom-boom-boom. The bush broke apart above me. I was too terrified to move. I looked up at the trunk curling over me and at his bright pink tongue. Harry shot him cleanly from the side through the left ear. The great beast fell at my feet like a sack of meal." 

The bulls are dangerous at any time. "They have a mean little eye," Anne explains– But particularly in the mating season or when they've had too much to drink. They eat the fruit from the Morula tree, which ferments in their stomach and gives them a massive jag. 

Lady elephants are much more appealing, Anne says. Claims they're actually able to look demure during the courtship ceremony. It takes 24 months to produce a calf, which is a half ton and perfectly formed at birth, and trots right around to the front of the lady elephant where the refreshment booth is located. The bull at this point leaves in disgust and broods continuously until love calls again.

For more information write to Box 12. Answers will be sent in a plain envelope.

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