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Friday,na
HONGKONG TELEGRAPH.:::
The LATEST
IN AUTOMOBILE ATTIRE
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The
HOTEL GARAGE Stubbs Rd.
Hongkong Telegraph.
Friday, December 6, 1940. Wyndham St., Hongkong
Telephone: 26015
THE prefix "Spreial to the Telegraph" ls used by the "fangkong Telegraph to indicals news which is strictly copyright
under the prevlilons of the Telecommuni cations Ordinance, 1938. Such newU, AT bear the indication “UP” la received in. Hongkong an the date of publication by the United Prem Avociations, who re- serve all rights and forbid repubileations. either wholly or in part without previous arrangement,
*December 6, 1940.
H. V. MORTON takes you along
GRAZIANI'S ROAD
INTO
is said that an English soldier of the last war described Mesopotamia as "miles and miles and miles of damn-all."
The same eloquent des- cription might be applied to the Libyan Desert, along whose northern fringe the Italian armies are advancing towards Egypt.
It is a terrible wilderness, much of it still unexplored, terrifying in extent, and presided over, according to Arab tradition, by the devil himself.
But the Italians evidently have no desire to repeat the dis- aster which befell a Persian army of 50,000 strong which set off to march into the heart of this desert many centuries ago. and was never seen or heard of again.
CYPRUS TRIPOLL.
„HAIFA)
ALEXANDRIA
GIR ELLOS CAIRO
LIBYA
EGYPT
SUEZ
FR.PITH
EGYPT
PIPELINE
*KIRMUK
IRAN
SAUDI ARABIA
SUDAN KASSALA KHARTOUM
METEMHA
(MASS)
ADEN
ITALIAN TERRITORY
HILES
ADDIS ABABA
MOTALE
KENYA
LUGH
SOMA
SOMALIL
THREE ITALIAN ARMIES are said to be forming for an attack on Beypt, one along the coast to Alexandria, and the ulbers from Liliya and Halian East Africa planned to meet at Wadi
Halfa on the Nile at the south of Egypt
About every ten
or fifteen
It is said that "the spirit miles there is a bleak little rail wind' arose, and that some way station standing forlorn on where in the tracklcas wastes the flat sand and, not far away, a poverty-stricken village whose the 50,000 still lie in their ar- houses are made mostly of old mour as they died:
petrol tins,
stricken than the last, and then, about thirty miles from Alexan- dria, one comes suddenly upon a little walled town with an om- battled Arab gateway; and this is Burg-el-Arab.
Desert Culture
This little town, which looks. so old and Saracenic, was built by an Englishman after the Inst war, Major Jennings-Bramly, who has explored the Western Desert and posscases a deep af- fection for the strange, back- ward people who inhabit it.
When he retired from Government service, he decided to settle down in the desert and to build a town which might serve as a focus for the dis persed life of the desert folk.
Bury-el-Arab was to be the market of the Western Desert, a centre of culture, healing and manufacture, a place where the Arabs could bring their meagre produce and learn new methods of agriculture..
Excellent work has been done there and is still being done. Manufactures have been started, and the desert round about has been planted with olives, vines, carobs, and other trees with a commercial value.
race, probably the descendants of the varied people who inha- bited the const-line in Roman They wear a voluminous, and days. generally spotlessly white, gar ment called a furd, which is slung over the shoulder and is, There are no trees. The only I have no doubt, a memory of not been able to make the de-
the Roman toga.
thing
Along The Coast
stone buildings in these squalid The Italians are advancing, villages are the mosque and the not into the dangerous interior, police station.
The but along the coast road to
extraordinary Alexandria. This road is never about this coastal strip is that, far from the sea. At some although it is so bleak and de- places it is ten miles distant, solate to-day, there is evidence A flourishing civilisation but generally it is not more than that two or three miles away from a existed there in Roman times. glimpse of the blue Mediter- ranean waves.
Roman Ruins
habit
The founder of Burg-el-Arab lives with his wife and family in a beautiful house which he designed himself, and, if he has
const.
acrt blossom quite like the rose, he has at least the satisfaction Instead of the keffiyeh of the of knowing that he has made Bedouin, or the tarnish of the the only attempt since Roman Egyptian,, these people wear times to civilise that desolate A SPLENDID WORK
little red skull cap from which
. It is not known at what point The only Europeans who in- HONGKONG probably has
hangs a bright blue tassel.
Greek upon the 200-mile road to Ale are this coast more, certainly as many social
traders. The general store in xandrin the British forces will problems to the square mile as
every little village is invariably call a habit to the Italian ad- any heavily populated city in
owned by some dark unshaven, vance.
merchant
I Shall quick-minded little the world. The root causes vary but slightly, with the
Like everything in this part from Alexandria, or, perhaps by economic aspect dominating. It is not a metalled road, of the world, such civilisation some emigrant from the Greek Remember.
depended upon fresh water. islands, This is the factor which does so neither is it a straight one.
It would not, perhaps, be rash Along the whole, 200-mile much to thwart and retard the
expect the defenders of. It is now sandy and soft, and The ruins of Roman towns ly-
ing on the bare sand, the re- stretch of coast road from Mer- to public-spirited work of the several voluntary organisations now hard and full of pot holes; mains of olive terraces and even sa Matruh to Alexandria there Egypt to allow the enemy to seeking to bring amelioration to and it is accompanied, from of vineyards, prove that cen- is absolutely nothing to claim expect the defenders of Egypt this bleak and unprofitable the Colony's social sore-spots. Mersa Matruh castwards to turies ago the Romans tapped the attention until one reaches to allow the enemy to over-run Fuka, Galal, El Dab'a, Ghazal stretch of country for many Hongkong's "victims of circum- Alexandria, by a single-track water supplies which have since a place called Burg-el-Arab.
The people-who-live-along the are some of the names of the miles, drawing him farther and stances" number tens of thou- railway line that is generally either dried up or become lost. sands; they exist at near-star-washed away in long stretches coast road are not Egyptians, villages on the way, each one farther away-from-his-bases
during the rainy season.
neither are they Arabs. They exactly like the other, each one and permitting him to lengthen vation point on average
The rain falls only along the are. North Africans of mixed more desolate and poverty- his lines wage, as the current report of the Society for the Protection coastal belt. The interior often; of Children paints out, of $1.80 sees no rain at all for periods of per head monthly, and their pro-six, ten and fifteen years; even blem appears to defy solution. longer,
an
That the problem is tackled
And it is to the coastal bell
at all is cause for commendation that the nomads come in the wet and satisfaction, for the magnisson to sow their meagre tude of the task is sufficient to
crops of barley, staying just bring despair to the most en-long enough to harvest them be thusiastic social worker; when fore slipping away again into it is revealed that the S.P.C., the mysterious interior. alone handled 3,880 cases dur- ing the past twelve months, providing care and attention for destitute Chinese mothers and babies, it is possible to gain an appreciation of the fine work being accomplished by the fighters of Hongkong's social
discases.
ing
In bad years the heat and the
E
Why
our
we hold
hand
By Lt. Col.. C. B. Costin-Nian
of communication,. which are singularly vulnerable to attack both by air and sen.
When in the next few days I' read that such and such a "town" has been entered by the Italians, or that such and such: a "town" has been bombed, I shall remember that dreary road to Alexandrin, on, which there are no towns, and where there into their precarious petrol sup-exists nothing worth entering or bombing, except the English- ply.
man's dream, Burg-el-Arab,. As they wind along the coast which, I hope, will remain safe- road they have suffered heavy ly behind the lines.
casualties, since their forma- tions are excellent targets for
drought kill off their horses and cattle and reduce them to fa- mine, and it is necessary for the VERY yard the Italians our 25-poundors, machine guns advance into the Libyanjand bombers. They cannot find Frontiers Administration of the
Our men thrust in here, there, have Egyptian Government to make Desert the more exposed and targets to fire back on.
and are away. They free distribution of barley in longer become their lines of order to prevent these people supply and the shorter and adopted guerilla tactics, and are
accessible become our clusive. from dying like flies.
mare
This distribution takes place own.
The section of ground the
the sea.
Girls Tell Of Work Near Bomb
Girls at a Midlands munitions: In addition, over 75,000 visita
at Mersa Matruh, a place that were made to the Society's has been in the news lately, and We are letting them labour Italians are advancing along
then southwards, and forms alike to carry on with their jobs branches and centres, while its the next place along the Italian with the hundreds of miles of extends from Sollum castwards, works told recently what it is barren desert and allowing the land island fifty feet higher than 50 yards from an unexploded inspectors made over 8,000 visits line of march.
desert to fight for us.
bomb. to the homes (if they may be
Miles Only $200
Mr. Herbert Morrison, Minis- For this is our plan-to let It is a natural jumping-off called such) of the needy and
of Supply, praised the alling. Cases are investigated From Mersa Matruh to Ale them advance just so far before plateau for an attack on Meran- ter
heroism of these girls after visit- blows fall, while in the Matruh. where cruelty is reported or sus-xandrin, is a distance of only our
In the sweltering heat, the ing their factory recently. 200 miles. It is possible for an meantime heavy toll is taken of
This is what the girls sald pected.
Miss Malsie Batchelor, aged 24: It: The self-appointed task of organis-ordinary traveller to make, this their land and sea flanks and Italians are now boasting that Defeat for them under their navy will help them with and running infant welfare journey in one day in a car rear.
theno conditions in the heart of water supplies and covering was a change to have a little axelto- centres and homes calls for a spirit fitted with balloon tyres.
Miss Gertrude Sanders, aged 20: At Two years ago I set off from the desert will be all the more fire. If they try this a terrific ment. I don't think my typing was
decisive.
reception will await them off the "ny worse than usual, which rises for above any thought of
it might go self-uggrandlsement; it demands a Mersa Matruh at 5 am. andj
FOLLOWING the coast road, coast, where our Fleet will get frat us we typed we sald to our burning sincerity and redoubtable reached Alexandria the Barne
Then we got so bury that we for-- those Indies who are on thing for day at about 7 p.m. with every a mobile. (semi-armoured) divi. the chance they have waited for ves, "It might go off; it mig
who are fulfilling this bone in my body aching and my sion is now leading the way, so long.
There are several of their small WITH three divisions now ad-got all about it.
Mim Doris Ager, aged 29: I am a task so efficiently and effectively, un-
nose, eyes and throat full of marked by the blare of publicly..
fire straight ahead.
trying to bludgeon hle way telephone.operator. Miss Legge, our The work of the S.P.C. like that brown dust as fine as talc two-men tanks which can only vancing, Marshal Graziani is
Blitzkrieg supervisor, said she would stay, and powder.
so did we. Many 4.7 anti-tank guns have through not on It is not a pleasant journey.
wo were ready a sympathetic publie and an appre neither is it a picturesque one been pushed well forward, for methods, but by trying to build we had our clothes handy, so that
to runway Pa the Italians have recently had up camps and dump of store
Miss Winifred Bibby, aged 23, also clative Government. It is a society
The desert peters out in low great cause to fear our tanks, and water as he slowly pro- which should not be permlited to
Tractors are dragging heavy Each stage offers us now tara telephone girl: It was just, a job carry a deficit of $3,551 on the year's sand dunes, long stretches of working. Nothing should be allowed stony, flatness, and, bergand to binder its work; on the contrary there, in desolate marshes 758 and supply wagons, and the gets and detaches and dispersesoris Radil: aged 18: The everything possible should be done which run down to the lonely forward infantry met so far are our enemies, who have to pro- boys in the Lacte kent on, to
in lorries. All this is eating tect this lengthening line...r 'Mediterranean waves.) to encourage it.Blade VIN
of its contemporary social organisa-
tions, deserves the fullest support of
A
+
gresses.
*
if anything happened w
work.
shouldn't we at the phonest..
1