A DESERT VENTURE

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 223, 20 September 1935, Page 5

A DESERT VENTURE

ENGLISHMAN'S BID. }

LEGENDARY FORTUNE. "S

OOLD HIDDEN IN CAVES. I

(Special.—By Air Mail.)

LONDON, August 31. A Cornisliman, Mr. Norman Pearn, of Bromley, Kent, leaves London early in September on an attempt to cross three, deserts. He plans to cross first th« Saliara and thou tho Libyan desert From tliis lie will pass through Abyssinia. After crossing the Red Sea. h»» will tackle the most dangerous part of his journey—the dreaded Rub al Khali, in tiie Arabian desert. Only two white men in the world hav#) successfully challenged tho wateriest; wastes of the Rub al Khali. They axe, two Englishmen—Mr. St. John Philbj* and Mr. Bertram Thomas. Mr. Pearn previously crossed the, Sahara in 1932. With him was Mr.. William Doukin. They set out from. Tug'mrt, on the edae of tho desert,, dressed as Arabs. With them were sir. camels and two native guides. They travelled an original route, in the heat, of midsummer, with the temperature at, one desolate fort reaching 160 degrees in the shade. They battled for 2000> miles with sand and "dust storms. Waterwas so scarce that the camels had to. go six days without liquid. One guide, tried to play them false and an Arab, (chieftain, at a time when the two travellers wanted food, water, a guide, and camels, tried to hold them to. ransom. Some of their camels went lame, sick and mad, but keeping--1 steadily to a 25-mile-a-day schedule, the, j men reached Kano, in British j four months later. I Mr. Pearn believes that a hoard or I ancient gold is hidden in undergrounds I caves in' the Imam of Yemen's terri-. torv. He said that a British ex-naval officer who was in that quarter for 18; i voars had given him some : about it. His proposed journey wilji be -1000 miles long. - m.