HIS LIFE THE PRICE

Evening Star, Issue 21078, 15 April 1932, Page 5

HIS LIFE THE PRICE

VISIT TO MYSTERY CITY Michel Vieuchango, a young French explorer, had heard of Sinara, city or mystery at the edge of French Morocco, and he determined to see it. He did see it, he even took pictures of it, but the adventure cost him his life. He returned to Agadir and civilisation eighty days after he started out, only to die in the hospital there as a result of the hardships lie had suflerod. Fortunately his scribbled notes and his little photographs acre saved, and those are now being published lor the world to see (says the ‘ San Francisco Chronicle ’). Sinara is beyond civilisation, where

unpacified French Morocco touches Rio do Oro. Miles upon miles of desert surround it. Before Vieuchango’s visit no white man had ever been there. An automobile has never been within filtv miles of it. Its people have no desire to sec anything beyond their land of thirst and snakes, or, to experience anything beyond the free life of desert brigands. Their hand is against all other Moors, especially those that cultivate the land and sell to the French. They wander with their camels and Hocks wherever there is scrub grass, and it is said that they can go a week without eating and three days without drink. It is also said that they can gorge with mutton and tea and then go to sleep for two days and nights. They raid lone caravans without caring whether they arc Mohammedans or Christians, Their blood is that of the an-

ciont Berbers mixed with Sudanese blacks. They are close enough to the Arabs to repeat “ Allah is Allah and Mohammed is his prophet,” but they do not fast in Ramadan nor kneel toward Mecca. They hate all civilised men. especially white men. - When Michel Vieuchangc determined to go to Sinara a landowner of South Morocco gave him as his attendant a; trustworthy Moor. He went disguised as a woman of the people, in'flowing blue veils and gown, with aoiatjvc family. The first part of the journey was on foot, the latter part on camelback. His tiny kodak was safely carried beneath the blue veils. Toward the end of his stay, among these people mysterious and disquieting rumours began to circulate to the eftect that a Round (white foreigner) was; in, their midst. This'boded ill for Vieu-1 change, especially when one sheik said:

“He is not. an American hunting mines. Ho is surely a Frenchman who spies to see how our great city, Smara,. can be taken.” It was then time for Vicuchangc to leave, and he did, but too late. When he had reached tho first outpost on the return trip a military aeroplane carried him' to Agadir and the hospital and death’. ■ But if anyone ever. wants to go to Sinara again, if tho French authorities ever want to try to_ take ■ it, as the sheik suspected, their task will bo made easier by the young explorer s pencilled notes and his little-snapshots.' French aeroplanes will now know bettor how to fly over it. .