PERILS OF TRAVEL

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 January 1930, Page 9

PERILS OF TRAVEL

AMONG UNRULY TRIBES.

SYDNEY, January 8.

A romance of adventure and business enterprise among . unruly tribesmen that inhabit parts of Syria, Iraq., and the barren stretches of the Arabian Peninsula was told in quiet phrases by Mr. Norman Nairn, who, with his wife, reached Sydney by the Marama yesterday. He is on his way to New Zealand for his first visit since he left the Dominion in 1915 to join the Royal Air Force. After finishing his service he was dischai<ged at his own request, and commenced a small motor mail passenger service between Beyrouth and Haifa, a distance of about 100 miles along fairly good roads. Since then, under Mi' Nairn’s charge, the service has grown into a great company, with fleets of six-wheeled ’buses and touring cars, and the service has been extended across 530 miles of desert sands to Bagdad. These advances have been made in the face of great difficulties, Mr. Nairn said. Many times the existence of the company was threatened by bands of robbers who terrorised the country. Machines were held up, the passengers and drivers stripped, and the ’buses robbed and destroyed. Men were shot while endeavouring to protect the property of the company ,and cars were stolen by the wild bands which would swoop on a car, bundle out the passengers, and drive off into, the desert. Action was taken at last by the British and French Government officials, after the company had contracted with a sheik to protect the ’buses for £2OOO a year. Armoured cars were placed at the side of the convoys, and when they left British territory they were protected by French armoured cars.

SEVERAL MEN SHOT. The most serious period was in 1926, when the Druses rebelled and for somo time had control of the French sectoi- of the route between Beyrouth and Bagdad. The attacks on the buses became an every-day affair, and the company suffered heavily. When officers and men were detailed to escort tho vehicles and bandits were not dismayed, and several men were shot. One French officer was killed and several wounded.

Finally the route was changed by a detour through British territory by way of Jerusalem, Amman, Rutba, and Bagdad. An efficient escort of armoured cars protected the convoy. Mr. Nairn said that even when the tribes were at peace there were dangers from wild bands of outlaws, all of whom had a price on their heads. However, conditions had become much more stable, and for three years the Bedouin tribes had offered no violence to passengers, though they had stolen cars.

In 1926 an Anglo-French group was formed to take over the company. Mr Nairn retained the position of managing director, and remained a shareholder. Another shareholder was the sheik, Mahomet Ibn Bassam, who had contracted to protect the buses to the best of his ability. He purchased a largo interest.

Seeing the possibilities of expansion, Mr. Nairn travelled to America and ordered a fleet of specially designed six-wheeled vehicles. So important is the route that the Government had built a fort -at the spring of Rutba, where an aerodrome has been laid out for the use of the Imperial Airway machines. The company has erected a modern guest house there, which makes its own ice and provides accommodation for forty travellers, who are mainly tourists, officials of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, French or British officers and men, religious students, and commercial men.

Mr. Nairn lias been arranging in America for the formation of a number of aeroplanes to supplement the motor service. The distance of 530 miles to Baghdad takes 28 hours by ’bus, but by air the journey could be cut down to four and a half