ROMANCE OF MOROCCO

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 November 1933, Page 12

ROMANCE OF MOROCCO

ENGLISHWOMAN LEADS REBELS

With the surrender of Sheik Ous Skounti, the fierce Berber diehard, the French forces in Morocco completed their conquest of the Atlas Mountains region a few weeks ago. In the last desperate stand the tribesmen led by an Englishwoman—the wife ot Ous Skounti who took over command when her husband was sorely wounded. Ringed with steel and fire on a few acres of rocky, barren tableland, and faced with the prospect of dying of thirst, the Amazon and her faithful warriors laid down their arms. Not even in the wildest fights of fiction is, there a story comparable with the amazing career of this intrepid woman who was born in Staffordshire thirty-six years ago. The astonishing circumstances under which she became the bride of a desert chieftain are related by a correspondent of the 'News of the World.’ In the course of the most desperate stage of the fighting the Foreign Legion observers were amazed to see moving freely among the rebel tribesmen, and obviously urging them on to fresh efforts, v a remarkably goodlooking woman of striking presence, with dark flashing eyes and jet-black hair.

Although the target of hundreds of rifles, the woman seemed to bear a charmed life. Like an Amazon of old, she plunged in where the fighting was fiercest heedless of the hail of bullets. Intelligence officers, peering through their glasses, recognised this incarnation of the spirit of rbvolt as the white wife of Sheik Ous Skounti, one of the Beber diehard's who had sworn not to lay down his arms while a single Frenchman remained in Morcco. It transpired that the woman was none other than the former Miss Eileen Parsons, a native of West Bromwich, and the daughter of a merchant who has been in business in Morocco ' for some years. Her amazing translation from the quietude of an English home to the fierce battle fields of the desert provides a story more fantastic and romantic than any in fiction.

Thirteen years ago Miss Parsonsthen a'girl of 23—was a member of a tourist party in the Sahara which fqll into the hands of a raiding party of Bedouins, In turn, the Bedouins were attacked by a band of Berbers under Ous Skounti, and routed. The Berbers took the whole party of tourists to one of their strongholds in the Atlas Mountains with the idea of holding them for ransom. In the fight with the Bedouins Sheik Ous Skounti received a flesh wound, and by the time the stronghold was reached his life was in danger. Miss Parsons, who had received medical training, volunteered to nurse him, and when he recovered he show.ed his gratitude by releasing all the captives. The English girl was invited to spend some months as the guest of the tribe in the mountains, and she accepted. Later Miss Parsons astounded her family and friends by announcing that she was completely captivated by the life of the desert people, and that she had decided to accept an offer of marriage from the sheik, who already had one wife. At the request of her family a missionary in the region interviewed her and pleaded that she should abandon her idea. She refused and in due course became the sheik’s second wife.

ASCENDANCY OVER HUSBAND In a few years the English girl rapidly gained ascendancy over her husband and his followers. She shared their life as nomads and raiders, and became expert in the use of the carbine. It is claimed that she took part in most of the fighting the Berbers had had with the French, Moroccan, and Spanish forces. In the recent operations she is credited with the only success scored by the tribesmen against the French airmen—that of bringing down a machine in flames after piercing the petrol tank with a bullet.

Miss Parsons played a notable part in the final drama. France was determined to extinguish once and' for all the turbulent elements in her vast North African possessions, and slowly but surely the armies of the Republic encircled the Berber tribes in their fastnesses. Overwhelming forces compelled the surrender of the main body of 3,000 under their veteran chief, Ou Arlji. Hemmed in on every side and deprived of water by the systematic bombing of wells, they realised that resistance was hopeless. Sheik Ous Skounti was ; severely wounded, and his band debated' the question of surrender. A council was held to settle the matter, and a native witch doctor, an aged widow claiming descent from the Prophet, advised the tribesmen to lay down their arms. The former Miss Parsons, however, was made of sterner stuff. She spoke boldly in favour of resistance to the last, and when the majority sided with the w'itch doctor, the fearless Englishwoman, with her woundXd husband, their three children, and a handful of faithful warriors, retired to a barren, rocky tableland on Mount Badou, only a few acres wide, to renew their conflict with the invaders.

The heroic band numbered only 110 fighting men, and soon the Foreign Legion machine guns and’ the famous 75’s cut them off from their last water supply. Death by thirst was only a matter of hours, and as there were hundreds of women and children with them, Ous Skounti and his gallant wife bowed to the inevitable. They led their followers through the French lines, and personally surrendered to General Giraud.

In the days when the French tried peaceful persuasion Miss Parsons often acted as interpreter. Intelligence officers who met her declared that she never left any doubt as to her nationality, although her appearance was suggestive of Spanish or Moorish blood. She told them that she loved, the roaming life of the children of the desert, and detested the coming of the European civilisation.