TRAGEDY ON DESERT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18964, 11 March 1925, Page 9

TRAGEDY ON DESERT.

THIEVES ATTACK MOTORISTS. FRENCHWOMAN MURDERED. Sun. LONDON. Mar. !) The Bagdad correspondent of the Daily Mail says a band uf miscreants fired at two motor-cars which were proceeding to Bevrout across the Syrian desert. 'I hey killed the wife of the French Vice-Consul at Bagdad. The assailants ransacked the baggage of one car. The driver of the second car put on speed and escaped. Armoured cars and aeroplanes are pursuing the murderers. NEW ZEALAND ENTERPRISE. PREVIOUS ATTACKS RECALLED. [By TE LEG RA PH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] GISBOENB. Tuesday. The motor-car service, which is reported by cablegram to have been attacked by bandits, is conducted by two New Zealanders, the brothers Nairn, sons of Dr. Nairn, of Blenheim, who after the war saw opportunities for motoring enterprise in Palestine. They first commenced a regular motor service between liai.'a and Beyrout, a distance of 10 miles. A year ago their conceived the idea of running a weekly service to Bagdad, via Damascus, straight through the Syrian desert, a distance of 600 miles from Beyrout. The first attempt was made with two cars, traversiPL' 530 miles of absoluteiV unchartered country. Not a single yard of impossible ground was found and not one. bridge had to be improvised. The main trouble was punctures caused by camel thorn. After one or two such journeys a regular track was marked out by the wheels of the cars, the camel thorn was crushed out of existence and it was found possible to drive by night as well as by day. The company established a4B hours' mail service from Haifa to Bagdad and takes passengers at £35 a head, this direct rout saving the long 'journey round by Bombay and Basra. Since the mail service started eight months ago the mails have been late only once, and that in the rainy season. The servico is rapidly expanding, and a convoy often consists of eight or nine cars. In an account of the journey given in the English Review it is stated: "About 1.30 having completed 100 miles of the desert, journey we stopped for lunch, and it was then that a rather amusing incident happened. .As we were preparing our meal a party of about 12 Bedouins, all mounted on camels, appeared over a hill about a mile away. They "spotted" our stationary cars and immediately started to trot toward us. Seeing this our drivers bundled the lunch back into the cars as quickly as possible, started their engines and went on. Meanwhile two of .the Bedouins had detached themselves from the remainder and were heading for the track some way in front in order to try and cut us off, but they were too far away and soon gave it up. Wo went on for about eight or ten miles and again unpacked for lunch. It was then that the drivers told us that nine times out of ten these small Bedouin columns wandering about in the desert were robbers out to raid another tribe, or anybody or anything else they could find. "Twice since the overland tnail started these Bedouin marauders have attempted to hold up cars by getting across the track, and on both occasions they fired after them without doing any damage. On the second occasion the convoy was bound for Damascus and on it.s arrival reported the matter to the French police, who sent out four armoured cars post haste, succeeded in locating the column and took every man prisoner. Each got twelve months' imprisonment and the tribe was heavily fined."