1936-06-15 — Page 14

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, MONDAY, JUNE 15, 1986.

THE

MAGIC

CARPET-2

S

OMETHING like the Mar- gate sands at low tide, only more of it, an endloss vista of hard-baked sand, with the sun overhead and a cloud- less blue sky-that, a month ago, was my idea of a desert,

As soon as we left hospitable, but high-smelling, Ben Gardene, we found how wrong we were. The beautiful palin-treed oasis of our be imagination turned out to dreary dumps, supplying, if any- thing at all, only a little brackishi water.

And it was the first day of the piblich, the hot south wind that blows sand a thousand miles across the desert until st penetrates erywhere. Before wo ласт had driven an hour, with windows tightly closed, we were eating

And, It had clogged

Early-morning tea in the wilderness.

Thomas H.

Wisdom

prepared to spend the night in the car.

Tins were opened. A chicken was dovoured. The only tragedy that befell three hungry folk was that some bread which we had pur- chased en route had turned out to be a crosa between Christmas pudding and ginger cake!

The backs of the front seats were lowered, so that a bed could be made up inside the car-and soon three weaty adventurers were asleep, only ono being disturbed by the cries of the jackals and an- other by the fact that the gear- a restful lover interfered with position for his feet!

STORM in the DESERT

nose and cars. I want everywhere. The heat of the wind, to us who had complained of the cold but a week be And the fore, scorched our lunga.

piblich, no we were soon to And out, blows for three, five or seven days on end,

All semblance of n rond had dis- appeared. We were following, or en. deavourlag to follow, a faintly dis- cernible track across the plain on which the only growing thing was odd patches of scrub. And every now and then we struck stretches of host nand.

get There was only one way through them-charge "flat out" in tow gear and hope to get over before the shifting sand bad sucked the wheels to rest.

קון

Sometimes, careering, madiy banks, craching over busips, with pne sengers Jailed out of their seats, we But soon we escaped this desert bog. were stuck, with the ear down to its wheel hubs in the rand,

Bu, for an hour, we dug and then unravelled our bamboo-ranged rope indders whileh, placed beneath the wheels, Inst rot us on to firmer desert

*

"

باز

MORE of it was to come.

As we alighted Fort Elwat el Comah, the desert out- post on the edge of the "no man's Innid that lies between French Tuntala and Italian Tripolitania, we put on speed in a desperate en- tieavour to surmount the sand- dunes from which the fort looked down..

The and time agath we charged the

Hill of sand, only to get stuck. At last, when the ear had dug a hole nearly as big as itself, and we were. sweating like navvies, a handful of francs. obtained us the hire of the dozen or so Arab prisoners in the fort.

Interrupted in.ther game of ha'penny nap, or the Arab equivalent barefooted, they over the calmly stepped barbed wire which surrounded the fort, and pushed the car out of hole.

Successful crossing of the Libyan desert; through two armed camps, Italian and

London-Alexandria British; the

boat

beaten by car; down the Nile to Cairo; crossing of the Sinai desert; an armed guard for the "Magic Carpet" to Jeru- salem these adventures will be described in the next article in this series.

Eventually, Brian Lewis got the Magle Carpet over the top. He sak it wan harder task than any race in which he has driven!

The next twenty mies took us four hours. Three times we were well and truly stuck.

* *

occasiona ON countless

we just kept going. How the ear aloud the harsh rent- ment It received, and reas to re- ceive, still amazes the

I was a druggle across that man's land" of lifting and. But t last we reached Italian Customs, to be greeted, lo say the least of it, with reserve. From then on we followed a desert track-" putopiste" the "locals" call but reasonably hard, though Lumpy. to Tripoli, capital of the pro- viner and reskience of Balbo, one-time rival of Mussolini, who is now in exte here ns Governor.

Following morning any us early on our way, over part of the Tripol Cirand Prix course. fastest road-race

FRANCIS & DAY'S 60th, SONG & DANCE

ALBUM

CONTAINS

Thanks A Million, Roll Along Prairie Moon.

I'm in the Mood for Love, Music Hath Charms. You Are My Lucky Star, A Little Bit Independent. I've Got a Foclin' You're Fooling, Lonely Villa, Sing Before Breakfast. Poor Little Romany. Sailin' With the Breeze; Headin' Home. When You're Only Seventeen, Every Night at Eight, The Duchess is Learning to Rumba. Star Gazing. The Missus & Mor Whenever-l-Think of You.. Riding Up the River Road, With All My Heart, Stars Over Devon, Little Toys in the Corner. And Tho. Great Big Saw Came Nearer & Nearer,

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The Snapshots You'll want TOMORROW You must take TODAY.. but

Eat at-

...e sure you use Kodak Verichrome Film. It gets the picture where ordinary films fail. Comes in yellow box with checkered

Jimmy's Kitchen

Chins Building. Phone No. 20116. Kowloon Branch 10, ankow load. Tol. 59824.

from 9 o'clock

To-night's Supper

Danish Ham Steak & Chips

Coffee

Ice Cream -

$1

stripes.

Koda

VERICHROME FIL

track in the world-past the very pits where poor "Tim Birkin burned his arm on the red-hot exlinust of his ear, uburn that led to his death.

At Bral we motored happily through arent groves of palm trees, past Homs and Misurata-then just desolate desert and our hated friend the giblich.

In terrific beat, though we could not see the sun for the flying sand, und nt times as direult even to see Lite track, so that anxious glances at the compass and the map were frequent. we went for C0 miles without syeing a living thing.

Then we saw three gazelle in full fight. and a whole series of mirages. How good that phantom water looked! Finally, we found Fort el Ohaddin, lonellest place imaginable, to we knew we were on the right course. More bad going over a dreadfully rough track, at emes dimeult to find, lo Fort el Buerla Jisun.

Baou after that we had 30 miles of real genuine autostrada-part of the great road that will, one day, stretch right across the Libyan desert. It ha

For Junior. Readers

·been building A long time but the shifting zand la poor foundation for a road. The Italian mean to have their descrt autostrada-but from what we saw it will be a long time yet before it is completed.

We lay that night in tho tiny resthouse at Birte, Brian Lewis sharing a room with an unfriendly Italian and a tin of insecticidel

By now we were getting used to the frequent pats- port inspection-the Italians write down laboriously maiden name of mother, father's namo and other information not considered exactly essential in other civilised nations.

**

THIS following morning, nora such After one affair--Lewis, as usual, had dim- culty in explaining why, it his name was Lewis, his father's was Essendon-we wasted an hour and a half obtaining petrol. It was Anally parted with as if it were. liquid cold-and the price empha- sised that comparison.

That day was like the others-the iblich still operating. rough tracks, Terrific heat and hard going. At one time, led astray by a side-track, we found ourselves, motorlug with two The shouts of the wheels in the sen! passengers prevailed on the driver to retrnee his tracks and find another

0:0

Finally, 1,100 miles from Tunia, with darkness falling and the track more indistinct than ever, we slopped, and

BIRDS of the MARSHES

POWERFUL Strange & Eerie

drumming

sound pours Bird Cries

out of the wide.. cloud-patched sky.

Folk whe live near marshlands know that sound,

Far Away they see a speck flashing downwards with And zig-zagging wonderful speed. It is the chestnut.

this brown snipe, and strange wire caused by the vibration of his wing and tall feathers is his greeting to his inate.

"She" does act~~ reply, accrcey being her watch- word, while she sits tight in a tuft of marsh gruas with four blotched, Ternih olive eggs bc- But should. nenth her. the be startled, she darts away with such swiftness that only the keenest eyes can tell where her nest is.

colour of faded reeds and which at night

sometimes glows

Mrs. Wisdom made tea that morning--bow good it tastedf-and wo washed in 'eau-de- 10 precious cologne, was our three gallons of water.

That day we reached Fort el Angelia, where passports were demanded and Our reception was distinctly freezing. Behind the fort we. noticed a sort of triangle, ropes with loops for arms antt legs-evidently it is necessary to "discipline "the Arabs.

☆ ★

the tiny

THE Itailans unfroze that

evening, in shop that does duty for restaurant. We had tallor's shop, and bar. quite a merry. International party. Information calned-an Arab may not drink alcohol, but makes up for it by having seven wives; aver- age price of a wife-100 lire, or twu date palmat

Next stage was to Bengasi, capital of Cirenaica, the last 150 miles over a good road. And here we met expected trouble-between us and the Egyptian frontier was the Italian fortified area. Permission to traverse that aren was difficult to oblain, and we were there. in the midst of unfriendly Rallan and Boldlers-thousands of them. others arriving every day by bont-for three days.

Loudspeakers blared out the intest war news and anti-British propaganda Italians hate nti day. How the the British. und especially Mr. Eden!

Every time we left the hotel, a police- man followed us-usually ho only wanted to see our passports, though we could not oblige sluce the military Headquarters hid them. Then we got our passports back, after an Italian intelligence offeer had examined us. noted down our descriptions, and foldi us we could proceed.

KISS IN A MOSQUE

with phosphorescent LOVER FACES DEATH

BY STONING

1s

oyול

particles, rarely teen outside the Norfolk broads. Misguided egg collectors have been its andoing. Thrilling, too, are the cur lew's slivery, mournful notes. Endowed with a long, probing beak. Ideal for

The silver-polced

curleig now digs jor ner dinner.

Ta-ee, tu-ee," scream the redshanks, their white breasts gleaming in the sunshine above the

They, too, have swampy groutid. secreta clutches of pointed, speckled brown eggs tucked away among the grass. The female redshank is a grand mother to her fluffy chicks. Like the wild duck and plover, she will felgn a broken wing to entice threatening strangers away from her little enes.

On rare occasions the strangest of all bird ertes may be heard-the boom of the bittern, a deep in- tense sound. Alas, that this no bird. whose plumage is almost the exact

'Million To One'

Chance Accident

fishing worms from the mud, the "whil terick," as this bird is sometimes called, Icads a will-o'-the-wlop existence,

Not if she can help it will anyone see those greenish-dun egg, half- cavered with sedges in a scrape of turf, In contrast, the swan, altting on a great mass of rushes, scorns secrecy.

But beware of approaching too close to her nest! When she starts hissing. It is time to be off. A blow from one of those stout white wings may mean a broken leg..

Calcutta, May 31. A kiss enused a riot at the famous Baloachanwali mosque, says a message from Ferozepore. lovers A small boy anw, two embracing and kissing in sequestered corner of the mosque In violation--of-the Moslem.com mandment, "Thou shalt not make love in a mosque.”

3

The incident became known in the bazaars, and a crowd of in- furiated Moslems rushed to the mosque,

AUSTRALIA'S

FINEST INGREDIENTS

APPETISING AND

HEALTH-GIVING -

BISCUITS

122

ARNOTT'S

THE IDEAL PICNIC BISCUITS.

OVEN-FRESH because of the new scientific packing.

OUR BRITISH CROSSWORDS

18

19

31

ACROSS 1 No, this is not Mrs. Leo Hunter's quarry-rather a weed, in fact. Sultan invalid-would like to. 8 This bird can't fly.

10 Would this chair sult a Regius

Profesor?

11 Used to make a chicken run. 12 Metal with sandy centre. 13 Two half-pints, please,

16

This bird is not a boiler, though now and again a boiler does.

The lovers fled with the crowd 17 You'll still find the Spanish In pursuit.

spirit in this Scottish town.

18 1006,999,09 act like an ape.

They wrecked the young 20 The cultivation that determines

man's home, and condemned him to death by stoning.

Moslem leaders arrived hot foot and prevented the crowd from carrying out the punishment.

fled from the The girl hue village with her parents.

Spent Honeymoon

It was stated that Touzel alip Alone, Is Divorced

was.

4

ped down a ladder in the stock-

Mrs. Emilie Arsianlan, aged a shop where he was

granted room of

Assistant, twenty-sevon, Another employed. aged fifteen, stood there holding divorce at Newark, New Jersey, "Such an accident would not hapa sharply pointed bacon-boning when she testified that her hus pen ance in a million times," said knife. The knife entered Touzel's band, an Oriental rug dealer, aged the coroner at a Croydon inquest heart. The other assistant at fifty-three, left on a trip to Europe recently on Frank Touzel, aged the time did not know that Touzel on their marriage day six years come in contact with the ngo, but refused to take her on the fifteen, of Windermere-road, had

"honeymoon." Croydon.

SALESMAN SAM

knife,

VA MUST BE SNAPPIN' OUTA YER SICKNESS, CABOOSE! YA SURE GOT AN APPETITE

YOU'RE LOOKIN' GOOD - HOW

YA BEEN?

WOT? YER FEEDIN'

CHESTNUTS FER

DESSERT

Appropriate Food

the duration of youth:

22 This month Westminster will

display it

23 Cones down outside now inside, 2 Syrian seaport

28 Bar with a catch in it.

20 This animal is not indigenous Hampshire, but there is one' In Lips. 30 With knobs.

J1 Glad to be light-hearted.

DOWN

MYEAH! BUT DON'T WORRY,

BOSS-THEY'RE MADE TO ORDER FER HIM!

1 Garden rubbish should never be

carried in this.

2 No, no, it's all set for ideas.

Рост.

4 Present at present, yet not in

any place.

strip, a number of men, or make This may be a ring, a straight

music.

Limehouse

0 The fobrie, of a

oration?

7 Engine wheels go round on this

without revolving.

21

24

125

27

0 One letter less than bathed, arranged to speil how the tramp viewed a bath.

14 Soothes with charitable offer.

15 Spry.

ing

10 Not a good game to start, but DFI all right at the you Ret

inish.

18 A fine actor turns out hot stuff

the mud. among 19-Struggle with a definite end in

view. 20 No

bookie will accept a bet on This horse.

21 About considerable number

all very old.

25 Mado more comfortable.

20 English seaside transaction. 27 Pulico beat this.

Baturday's Bolution ¡MASTICA TEZ DENG

BIELO BROACH BRAGGARTER INDEE HORENSHAAVERT 8 8.ATRAPLODE IE

D8 18 AL ORIGIN LHERREN TO BNHAMU INS18TS NEOKLET. MORGEN DANE S PHLEGME, AG REMBE

EASKS RENTAL NI CENETT OF STRZ GET UNVEILED LUSTRE RJEMCHGE Y MYREPLANTED

By Small

THESE ARE HORSE

CHESTNUTS

§ 16 16 BY' SEA BERTICE, INC. T. MERIQ, U. H. FAT, OFF,