IN THE LIBYAN DESERT.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 56, 7 March 1921, Page 5

IN THE LIBYAN DESERT.

WOMAN'S ADVENTUROUS I JOURJTEY. n i MURDER PLOTS FOILED. v r,

iKecchc-l U.3G p.m.) LONDON, March G. c With the assistance of the "Times" j Mrs. Kosita Forbes accomplished a. re- j markable journey in the Libyan Desert, t Westward of tiie Nile, penc-trating ihe g oases cf Kufra, the headquarters ol the t Senussi, only once previously visited by . a European forty years ago. Mrs. Furbes is young and prelty, and had aa t adventurous five hundred mne trek, accompanied only by a few black soldiers, slaves and Bedouins. Her journey nearly ended at Jadaiba. eighty miles in the desert, when a murder plot was fl discovered in the aick of time, and she { escaped in the darkness after drugging . : the treacherous natives. She journeyed ' south for several days, suffering the tor- ( tures of hunger and thirst, subsisting on a mragre diet of dates and camels' milk. I When, picked up by a wandering caravan it was only by maintaining her dis--1 guise and praying five times daily that she was able to escape murder as a, ! Christian dog. Phc outwitted the suspicious, murderous Arabs repeatedly, until a friendly Senussi chief sent a caravan from Jedebia. The undaunted • woman was then placed in command of 18 camels, a number of soldiers, two slave girls and a number of slave guides, ' and they proceeded to the oasis. It was la wearying journey, skele*"ns of camels c being the. only break in the monotony of < Isand. They lost their way, their water i jrave. out, food dwindled, saddle mats were torn up for fodder for the mules, _ and the soldiers became mutinous. The > discovery of an uncharted well saved ' their lives.. ; The '"Times" is publishing a description of Mrs. Forbes' discoveries, including a mountain range, walls of old fortifications, a mysterious oasis, and town ships.—("Times.")