THE "BROWN BIRD."

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 72, 25 March 1915, Page 11

THE "BROWN BIRD."

JJIUSLNG SCENES IN A SYRIAN TOWN.

The following amusing description of . recent seaplane, reconnaissance by the i Allies at a Syrian port is given by a lady i who-witnessed it, and published in "The ....... . . - "A fSbJunneled cruiser came in sight from the south at about 9 a.m. -\t once there was great excitement. Everybody who had a roof went up on it, and crowds lined the seashore ready for any bombardneht that might take place. Numbers of ranic-stricken Moslem women carrying bundles and babies ran for the orange groves. Carts belonging to an orange map tore up the street earning loads of dishevelled, distracted soldiers, while their officers galloped alongside. Sections I of the Bedouin cavalry in swirling gi-oups I pfi 30 or 40. their hair and kaffiyehs 1 (head-cloths) very troublesome (so much so that two or three kaffiyehs flew off and their owners had to leave the ranks, alight, catch them, and put them en agin), pranced by, yelling ferociously. Then the commander, his great self halfstepping out of the vehicle, dashed past in'his carriage, recently "captured" from an ..English lady resident in the city—all making for the trenches to the south among the sandhills. A SEAPLANE APPEARS. Meantime, where was the cruiser? She had slowly sailed past, and was now opposite the northern end of the city. That was most troublesome for the commander, the Bedouin, and their kaffiyehs, the soldiers and their carts, had to rush back down the street and frighten her away from the north end of the city. They all did that, and she, frightened no doubt, steamed back again to the south. Of course, they all followed her there, but now, even though all came, she suddenly became interested —out of caprice, as it were —and anchored directly opposite them all. And then, wonder of wonders, a neat, small thing, like a brown bird, dropped over the side into the sea, skim- • mcd the water, and gracefully flew up l into the air, transformed into a seaplane! How they all did work to frighten it away! Soldiers hid under cactus hedges and fired their rifles at it, the Bedouin galloped about, shouting and firing. The commander himself fired at it, but it paid no attention. <It hovered over them for a little and then" disappeared into the ennshine towards the interior. What could they do now* Nothing. -So they did nothing. They merely waited hnd watched the motionless warship. About an hour and a-half passed, when suddenly a loud humming filled the air, and there was the seaplane directly over the city. This time it hovered affectionately over the group of English buildings. Rut what had the commander done there ? A Turkish flag flaunted itself over the English clergyman's house, which had been "captured," and in which the commander himself was then living. That was a trying coincidence, so immediately 1 more carts belonging to the orange merchant were brought, and the commander's baggage, every scrap of it, including some things "captured" from the English clergyman's house, were taken away off inland to the big convent, also "cap*ure<y this time from the Russian monks, early in the war. AT THE GERMAN COLONY. On flew tfie threatening brown bird-and - circled -round and round over the barracks and Government House, where "the rest of the soldiers—that is, those that were not under the cactus hedges—were in ambush. On it -went until it came directly over the small Gerninn colony, and here it suddenly stopped dead, for this was the heart, the core, the enemy in a nutshell, so to speak. No 6ne felt more alarmed,, however, than the enemy themselves. The German Consul gave orders, and the colony was evacuated at onee —not one man , left there to frighten the menacing brown bird away! But the brown bird soared harmlessly back again—southwards towards its nest, on to which everybody thought it was going to drop. It dropped. A shout of joy went up ' from the soldiers under the cactus hedges, from the wild, whirling Bedouin, and even from the commander himself, ' but a subdued groan from the unobtrusive crowds lining the seashore, for it had dropped into the sea instead. Now it would sink, lost for ever. The shouting, the rifle shots, the mad horseback manoeuvres—all had told, were taking effect —so more of it, the commander encouraged, to complete the destruction of the brown bird. But he got no response except a profound and sullen silence, for there was the brown, bird darting like an arrow straight through the water, leaving a shining, frothy white track behind it in the blue sea. It came alongside its nest, a crane stretched out its long arm protectingly over it and gently drew it up, where in a few minutes it disappeared WHAT NEXT? "Now, what next?" the onlookers' faces said ''Why, nothing," replied the cruiser. Her funnels began to smoke furiously, she turned her back on them all, and very slowly moved off towards the horizon. "Let mc tell you something," said one Moslem spectator to another standing by. t- ln the air it can fly, on the water it can walk; what can we do with a thing like that? Let us go home, ya Sheikh!" And they all went home. But disaster followed close on the heels of the brown bird, for that very afternoon several people were arrested by order of the commander. It had been a "day. of hot ■ Eunshine, and some had, unfortunately, put their sunshades up. The commander was a bright man, however, and he knew *at once that they had been signalling to the seaplane, especially one ill-fated lady, Whose parasol happened to be a red one. All these were taken to the Government House; some were flogged, some were detained a day or two, and some were merely advised that it was wicked, also dangerous, to communicate with the enemy. Such is Turkish government.