5000 MILES HIKE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 191, 15 August 1933, Page 5

5000 MILES HIKE.

INDIA TO LONDON.

WREATH FOR CENOTAPH.

ADVENTUROUS UNDERTAKING.

A man wlio had tramped from India for the purpoee laid a wreath on the Cenotaph, London, last month. He is Mr. Mark Howard Chalmers, a Scotsman, who chose this way to spend a *ong leave. It was not a begging trip. It cost Mm £100.

A "Daily Express" representative found Mr Chalmers on the road between Sittingbourne and Faversham. It was the last lap of his 5000 miles journey to London. He was dressed in iron-studded sandals, a gabardine tunic, jodhpurs, and a pith helmet, which was adorned with the little' flags of the twelve countries he had marched through., Carries an Umbrella. Hβ set out with a sleeping kit and all sorts of utensils, but before he had been many days jpn the road he had to shed most of his load. At the end he carried only a umbrella, a small haversack with toilet requisites, and a book of international phrases which had nelped him over the language' difficulties. Two quarts of India's best tea wae his staple daily drink. . He left a package of his tea for the Archbishop of Canterbury when he called at the cathedral on the day he arrived.

Snowstorms, -rainstorms, sandstorms. The man who linked India with London by his footsteps experienced all sorts of weather, all sorts of people. He set out on February 9, and wtmld not have reached London till the end of July, but that he was forced to journey Tialf-way across Yugoslavia by train, as the authorities would not allow him to remain more than fourteen days in the country. Only when he was forced did he take a lift. Once he met a motorist who told him that the two provinces he was about to pass through were in the hands of lawless tribes. The motorist was armed to the teeth, and drove the hiker through the bandits' territories. Wolves set about him in Bulgaria, and nearly ended his walk. Attacked by Wolves. "A-pack of six suddenly surrounded me," he said. "I had a long thong to protect myself, but one of the wolves snatched it out of my hand. I feared my end had come, but I thought of a packet of sandwiches in my haversack. I threw them to the wolves, and as they fought among themselves for the food I managed to give them the slip. Wits — that's what you want on a trek like this; nothing short of wits will carry you through." , During his 5000 miles on the high roads of twelve countries Chalmers hae never been ill, never had a cold, never had a blister on his feet, and the boots he set out with lasted him all the way to Hanover.