ACROSS THE DESERT IN A MOTOR-CAR.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 3831, 14 May 1913, Page 7

ACROSS THE DESERT IN A MOTOR-CAR.

DARING ENGLISHMEN

A book has just been published (writes “H.H.F.” in the London “Daily Mail”) which will make every Englishman who reads it—provided that he has nas not been de-Angli-cised —proud of his rgfe. It is called “To Menelikwith a Motor” (Hurst and Blackett), and it relates how two Englishmen took a quite unnecessary risk just for the Aun of it, and how they persevered with a cool, stolid courage in the face of dangers and obstacles that would certainly have turned most adventurers hack.

The story begins with the Emperor Menelek of Abyssinia wanting a motor car. Of course it could have been sent to him in pieces by rail and caravan and put together when they arrived. But it occurred to Mr Bede Bentley (whose father was the famous architect of Westminster Cathedral, by the way) that it would be far more sporting, and also give the Abyssinians a higher opinion of motor cars, if he were to drive the whole way across the desert from the Cull of Aden to Adis Abeba. He was told that it was unsafe. He was told that it was impossible. He smiled, and went on with his preparations. He engaged as his assistant Mr Reginald Wells, who, on being asked if he would care to go to Abyssinia, said at once/ “Yes, sir,” and then asked, after a discreet pause, “Where’s that, sir ?” Before the book it half read you will hold both of them in respect and admiration. As for their dog Bully you will love him as they did. He is one of the most delightful dogs I have ever come across—in a book.

The story is not told by the adventurers themselves, but by Mr Clifford Halle. It could not have been put into better hands. The tone is kept light all through, just such a tone as Englishmen use in describing their experiences. Pomposity would have spoiled the telling. Mr Halle, with his pleasant air of not taking the matter' too seriously, shows quite clearly nevertheless how near the plucky pair of motorists came to death, not once nor twice; and how their unconquerable English spirit saved their lives. Their worst encounters were with tribesmen of the desert who thought the motor was a railway come to ruin their caravan trade. In dealing with natives, Mr Wells found his skill in conjuring and concertina-playing most useful. There are pages here winch remind one of Captain Good’s famous eclipse in “King Solomon’s Mines,” or was it in “She”? Often one has to stop and laugh aloud at the comical situations. Even when they were a few hours off death by thirst and starvation the adventurers kept up heart and saw the amusing side of their desr private plight.

POISONED COFFEE. They lost several of their native “boys” in-fighting ,and one came to an end more tragic. Enraged at being caught stealing whisky this “boy,” who was assistant cook, poisoned some coffee. Luckily he was seen to drop something in it, and when he served the coffee he was compelled to drink it himself. It proved fatal. Several times bridges had to be built for the ear across rivers or ravines. At one point it eoukl only travel across soft sand by having planks laid down for a flew yards, then taken up and carried forward, and so on. Progress made in this way was, as Tan be imagined, maddeningly slow. The heat all the time was intense and the insects savagely insistent. When they arrived at Menelek’s capital the motorists were able to polish up their car, so that it showed very little trace of all it had been through. They could not so easily rid) out the marks which weariness and privation had left upon themselves. They were thin and wrinkled. Both looked, as Walls put it, as if-they had been born ‘.V good L Sri : t -i

long way back in 8.C.” Still, they had done what they s't out to do, and that was their reward. "Would men of any other nationality go through jso much for the sheer enjoyment of hardship and danger? A line in “Kitchener’s School” comes back to me: “Allah created tho English mad, the maddest of all mankind.” Yes, if it he madness to do what these,two did, then are tho Engish mad indeed, and long may they remain so! It is .this splendid hunger for life at any cost, for a vivid, realising of every kind of physical and mental sensation,, that has made the Empire. If ever Englishmen cease to do “mad’ ’things like this motor trip, then the day of that Empire will be drawing to a close.