"Mr Spots" - Leopard stories from Port St Johns

Stories of leopard sightings are plentiful from Port St Johns and the Wild Coast, although the sightings were  more numerous in the early part of last century.  A 2008 research paper on the status of leopards in South Africa states that "leopard populations in the Wild Coast are highly vulnerable to extinction in the next few decades."  (Yulan Friedmann, Endangered Wildlife Trust, SA and Dr Kathy Traylor-Holzer, IUCN/SSC Conservation Breeding Specialist Group.  Presented at the International Expert Workshop on CITES, Cancun, Mexico, 2008)

Please send your stories of leopard sightings on the Wild Coast to the email address above

Captain Sidney Turner, resident of Port St Johns during the early days of the town's existence, mentioned a leopard disturbing the peaceful life of the town.  Dated June 1888, this extract from a letter details his unfortunate plans for the leopard's fate:   "A large leopard, or tiger, as they are called here, has been kicking up a fearful row round our camp in the bush the last few days, and tomorrow I have a spare day (Sunday) so I am going to wait for him at the entrance to his den, and hope to get him. If I get him you can have the skin." (Captain Sidney Turner, from 'Portrait of a Pioneer' edited by Daphne Child, Macmillan South Africa, 1980)

Tiger Flats:   It has always been supposed that the name for the Tiger Flats area outside of Port St Johns along the western bank of the Umzimvubu River came from the Afrikaans 'tier' for tiger - a confusing reference to the leopards (not tigers) found there.  Despite the fact that tigers are not found in Africa, there are a two references to the word 'tier' in Afrikaans:

A Serval * 'Tierboskat'

 A 'tierboskat' is a serval:  a smaller cat with a beautifully mixed coat of stripes and spots. 

A Cheetah * 'Jagluiperd/Vlaktetier'

The 'jagluiperd' (cheetah) was formerly known as the 'jaagluiperd' from the English meaning 'hunting leopard'.  The cheetah was also known as a 'vlaktetier' in old Afrikaans usage, a reference to its flat savannah habitat.




Nelson Mandela, in his autobiography 'Long Walk to Freedom' mentions the confusion between leopards and tigers in Africa.  During one of the discussions with fellow inmates on Robben Island,   "One subject we harkened back to again and again was whether there were tigers in Africa.  Some argued that although it was popularly assumed that tigers lived in Africa, this was a myth and that they were native to Asia and the Indian subcontinent.  Africa had leopards in abundance, but no tigers.  The other side argued that tigers were native to Africa and some still lived there.  Some claimed to have seen with their own eyes this most powerful and beautiful of cats in the jungles of Africa.  I maintained that while there were no tigers to be found in contemporary Africa, there was a Xhosa word for tiger, a word different from the one for leopard, and that if the word existed in our language, the creature must have once existed in Africa.  Otherwise, why would there be a name for it?" (Nelson Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom: Abacus: 1995: pg 511)


Cecil Daniel sees yellow eyes in the torch light:

‘There is the story told by my uncle Cecil who, as a young man, probably in the years before the second World War, used to work as a barman at the Winston Hotel at night for extra money.  He was living at Cremorne at the time and he would ride a bicycle to town and back to Undercliff where he had a rowing boat to transport him across the river. 
The story he told me was that, late one night, he left town and was riding back to Undercliff, shining a torch onto the road ahead of him.  He was riding along the last stretch of the road before it opened up at Undercliff – a place where there was thick forest on the left hand side of him and reeds on the river bank on the right hand side – when he saw something, a dark shape crossing the road in front of him.  It stopped in the middle of the road, not too far from him, and turned and looked at him.  Cecil’s torch light caught eerie yellow eyes looking directly at him.  He knew then that it had to be a leopard as it was a large size and the yellow eyes were very cat-like.  It was walking in the direction of the reeds, as though it had come out of the forest and was crossing the road down towards the river.”  (Howard Daniel)

Leopard stories told by Cecil Daniel’s son, Lindsay:  
“One night after bioscope in the Town Hall, when I was going back home on my own, I saw a leopard with two cubs crossing the road.  It was crossing the road from the river side going up into the bush on the mountain side of the road.  This was on the road, just near the sharp bend before Undercliff.  There were some reeds on the river side of the road and a track going down to the river bank and leopards were often sighted there; they used to catch the cane rats in the reeds.  I remember a story about an old man who used to go fishing there in the evenings for cob and grunter.  Well, he packed up his fishing one time because he heard a leopard coughing right behind him in the reeds! 

We had an old dried up tree near the dam on our farm at Whispering Waters and the leopards used to use it for scratching and sharpening their claws.  You could see the scratch marks on the tree where they would sharpen their claws.  I remember my dad showing us the scratch marks on the tree and seeing the footprints and him saying to us ‘Look here boys, look at the footprints, a leopard has been here’.

There is a story about my brother Anthony, Frankie Lloyd and a black guy called Pepbeni.  They had a pellet gun and had shot rabbits on our farm, Whispering Waters.  They had shot a bunch of rabbits and were sitting under a tree on our farm up near the bush and were having a smoke.  Anthony said that he didn’t know why Frankie was shining his torch up into the tree and next minute they saw something that looked like a snake.  It was the leopard’s tail, it was sitting above them!  Frankie called the leopard’s name.  Now the black guy believes that you must never call a leopard’s name because then it will chase after you.  So they took off, and Anthony, who couldn’t run too well in those days, but he passed them all!!  They left the gun and the rabbits and they were gone!   (Lindsay Daniel)

 

The Priest and the Leopard:

This story is told by Kathryn Costello, Outspan Inn, Port St Johns.
"Father Russel was the resident Catholic priest in Port St Johns for a while.  He was one of those wiry little guys who thought that a 20km jog before breakfast was normal.  During a morning run up to the airstrip, he spotted a large leopard sunning itself on a rock near the road.  He stopped, looked at the leopard, said a couple of quiet 'Hail Marys'  and backtracked as fast as possible!" (Kathryn Costello:  www.outspaninn.co.za)

The Old Leopard and the Spaniels:
Kathryn Costello from the Outspan Inn recounts another leopard sighting:
"Tim Bax, the CO of the Special Forces stationed here 30 years ago, saw an old leopard in his garden.  His house was the house below the so-called Port Captain's House. As he was very fond of his two spaniels, he was very happy that the leopard was old and didn't attack his spaniels." (Kathryn Costello, Outspan Inn, Port St Johns)

Constable Tom Egling, the main character of a previous post involving his scooter, mbanga-mbanga bushes and a collie dog, collected a number of stories regarding leopard sightings in Port St Johns and other areas in the Transkei.  Tom was also an experienced hunter.  During his retirement, he documented the stories on an old typewriter.  A copy of the stories was given to Clarence Pretorius, ex-magistrate of Port St Johns, who gave a copy to Howard Daniel, who passed them to me.  I include them here as this is a valuable record of leopard sightings dating back in time.

Tom Egling called his entertaining stories "Mr Spots in Port St Johns".
The following stories were all written by Tom Egling and reproduced here in his own words:

Fred Turner and the leopards
At one time, up to about 1914, there must have been a large number of leopards about Port St. Johns and that area. However, from the people I interviewed, I could only find out about two persons who had been killed by leopards.   Fred Turner, out at Second Beach, employed a Bantu woman to hoe the maize lands. She had a suckling baby and placed it in the shade of a tree, wrapped in its blanket, asleep. When the sun was overhead, it became very hot so she moved to the shady tree to nurse her baby. But, she found the baby missing and its blankets strewn along the path. She ran and informed Fred Turner who concluded that a leopard had taken the baby. Fred had a couple of good dogs and traced the leopard to near Undercliff, at a little before sunset, where his dogs treed it. He shot it and on opening it up, found the remains of the baby in its stomach.

Undercliff was notorious for the number of dogs taken by leopards. There was no excuse as there was plenty of natural prey, that is bushbuck, blue duiker, grey duiker, baboons, monkeys, dassies and cane rats.  Fred Turner placed out strychnine bait and killed off a number of leopards, after which the loss of dogs ended. Strychnine is terribly bitter; how animals can swallow it puzzles me. (Tom Egling)

Cecil and the leopard in town

In about 1957, Cecil Daniel was walking along the street in Port St. Johns where the D.R.C. Church now stands, although there was no church there then. It was only built in the 1960s, I think.

Cecil heard a monkey chattering very agitatedly in the nearby large wild fig tree. He approached and watched as a large outcast male monkey sprang from branch to branch high up and a leopard went from limb to limb, lower down where they could take his weight. This carried on for some time, but then the monkey panicked and jumped to the ground. As the monkey landed, the leopard had him and walked into the forest without a backward look.

Piet Laubscher lived above this church and, on the bank and earth above his back verandah, he one morning spotted the fresh spoor of a leopard - probably the same leopard Cecil saw. (Tom Egling)

Cecil and the dweles

Cecil Daniel at one time lived with his widowed mother at Cremorne, across the Umzimvubu River on the Eastern bank of Port St. Johns. At that time there was no road for vehicles and the shortest route to and from Cremorne was, and still is, by boat across the river.

One night Cecil came home very late and left his bicycle at Undercliff and walked to his boat, carrying a torch. On the path through the reeds, he was puzzled by the chattering of the dweles (cane rats). The next thing a leopard pounced on a dwele in front of him and moved off.

Cecil got into his boat and says he would have beaten a Cambridge Rowing Crew in getting across the river!  (Tom Egling)

Cecil’s factotum loses his pants

One afternoon, Cecil was proceeding to Port St. Johns town where he was working as a barman. His servant found some excuse to follow him, but before getting into the boat to cross the Umzimvubu River, he asked Cecil to wait a while, as he had a ‘call of nature’ to attend to. With that he disappeared into the forest.

Sometime later he suddenly reappeared, taking gigantic strides and carrying his trousers in his hand. He jumped into the boat and started rowing furiously but the boat never moved. Cecil had to pull up the anchor first.

When they reached the other side, the servant started to don his trousers, whereupon Cecil asked him the cause of his hurry. The servant explained that while ‘communing with nature’, out of the corner of his eye he saw a dassie above on a rock, when suddenly a leopard pounced on it.  And he didn’t want to be next!  (Tom Egling)

Willie’s Heifer

Willie Daniel lived at Undercliff about two miles from Port St. Johns town on the old pont road, as it was known. This was in 1959. I would never have been happy living there, as I would have worried about half a cliff and boulders coming down from the top to crush the house.

One Sunday I went up the stream behind my house at Hillbrow with a fox terrier because the herd boy had complained that the cattle were afraid to cross the drift when coming from the grazing ground on the hillside.

I suspected  “Mr. Spots” was about, and had a look along the sides of the stream. When I got below the waterfall, in the drift sand, I found his spoor and then backtracked. When I was well above the waterfall, I saw a troop of baboons retreating into the open up the hillside, with two old males covering the retreat and barking in the direction of the forest. My terrier “Twinkels” was very agitated.

I sneaked down the bank onto a flat, smooth slippery surface under an Mswi tree (Eugenia cordata), which was heavily in fruit with an edible berry. I sat with both hammers of the old Jeffrey’s shotgun cocked. The triggers were very light and would go off at the slightest jar. This gun had a history. It had belonged to Henderson Soga, son of Tiyo Soga*, who was the missionary at Miller Mission in the Elliotdale District. It had been presented to him at one of the Scottish Universities when he graduated. (* see below for more information on Tiyo Soga and Henderson Soga)

I was looking and listening and heard movement in the Mswi tree above me. As I turned, I slipped and came down with the butt of the gun hard on the rock and both barrels fired. There was a scramble in the tree, and I thought “Fine!  Now you have a leopard above you and an unloaded gun!”

But it was just a young male baboon - which had got just as bad a fright as I had - and he made off after the troop, while I reloaded. No doubt the leopard had changed his ideas about a baboon meal after hearing the shots.

That evening I heard a racket at the cow and calf sheds, and being very brave (?) as I had a shooting torch, I investigated what “Punch” (a hunting bull terrier) and “Spotty” (a hunting fox terrier) were after behind the shed. As I moved further into the bush, it became too difficult to follow because of the undergrowth, so I called the dogs back. Punch had a gash on his cheek, so I treated it before going to bed.

The next morning, early, when passing Willie Daniel’s residence, I noticed that his cattle were in the banana garden, so I called in to tell him. The panel to his kitchen door had been broken inwards, and his dog with shriveled ears was inside the house.

Willie came out in his dressing gown and called to his general factotum, named Mgwegwelele, asking him why the cattle were out and he replied, “If you heard what I heard during the night you’d still be inside." Eventually he got out of his hut, which took some time, as he had barricaded the door with a table and cupboard.

We had a look at Willie’s kraal, which was an old quarry with a fence on one side. In the manure was Mr. Spots’ spoor and for a short distance a slight scrape like a stick had been dragged. Apparently Mr. Spots had caught something just above the kraal and jumped into the kraal for an easy exit. He had frightened the cattle, and some had broken their riems and crashed the gate into the banana garden. The dog and Mgwegwelele, hearing the noise, had taken evasive action.

A week later, Willie Daniel told me that his heifer had not returned from grazing and he sent the herd boy to find it. He found it in the long grass near Germany* and suspected that an otter had killed it. I went to look at the heifer and found the muzzle had been eaten and the throat torn.   Mr. Spots had changed to beef. (Tom Egling)   (*on the eastern bank of the Umzimvubu River)

 

                                                                                                                                     
* Tiyo Soga (approx 1819 - 1871) The first Black South African to be ordained.  He was an author and translator.  Tiyo Soga was the son of a chief and was educated at the Lovedale Missionary Institution.  He continued his higher education in Scotland in 1846 and 1851.  He contributed to the translation of the Bible into isiXhosa (www.universitystory.gla.ac.uk)

Tiyo Soga - Missionary, Translator, Composer, Journalist

Tiyo Soga's son, Henderson Soga, was the author of two historical works:  The South-Eastern Bantu (1930) and The Ama-Xhosa: Life and Customs (1932) (www.sahistory.org.za) Henderson Soga was also a composer of light instrumental music and hymns. (www.sacomposers.co.za)   

Henderson Soga