FILMING IN SAHARA

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 February 1937, Page 10

FILMING IN SAHARA

3-MONTH’S JOURNEY BY CAMEL.

Campbell Dixon “Daily Telegraph” film correspondent writes: —-After travelling thousands of miles, part of the time with a camel caravan across the waterless Central Sahara, Mr. Thornton Freeland has returned with 9,300 feet of film, which will later be cut down to 600 or 700 feet.

Shots gained in three months’ journeying in one of the most terrible deserts in the world will flash by on the screen in five or six minutes.

Mr. Freeland, an American, is directa picture for the Capitol Film Corporation. called “Jericho.” His object was to film the annual journey of the Arabs from Agades, in the Central Sahara, where the mountains of the Hoggar rise as high as most of the Alps, to Bilma, where the precious salt is mined.

This year 14,000 camels made the journey, laden with every kind of trading merchandise—except Circassian slaves. Slave trading has been put down by the French Government, though the last attack by desert nomads took place only six years ago. The French military authorities helped with supplies of petrol. Finally the last motor truck broke down owing to the buckling of the engine in the intense heat. Thence onward Mr. Freeland travelled and transported his equipment by camei. “They provided me with a nice white camel,” Mr. Freeland said. “He was fast, but very mean. To get on you had to take off your boots, step on his neck and try to reach the saddle before he bit you.” After leaving Agades the party travelled 1!) hours a day, without stopping for food, in an attempt to catch up with the main caravan. The worst section was a 12-day journey over a region devoid of food or water. At Faclii the first rain for three years had fallen, and the mud huts of the inhabitants had melted and fallen flat.