LONG MOTOR TOUR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19720, 20 August 1927, Page 11

LONG MOTOR TOUR.

UNPLEASANT INCIDENT. BIRTLES PARTY AND TURKS. LONDON. Aug 12. "We would not take your .country as a gift. We could put it in one corner of Australia, which is quite big enough for us." This was what Mr. Francis Birtles told the commandant of the former German battleship Goeben, when the Turks took him and his party prisoners at Ismid, the forbidden city. Mr. Billies and his companions, who were trying to motor across Europe and Asia to Australia, have returned to London from Delhi, where the journey was abandoned. , Mr. Birtles says he hopes to arrange with a British manufacturer for a fresh trip, probably via North Africa. He does not want to risk another meeting with the Turks, as the 10 days delay resulted in their running into monsoons. "They alleged we were spies and marched us to Ismid under an armed guard," he said. "We communicated secretly with the British Embassy at Constantinople, whose secretary journeyed to Angora and interviewed the Turkish Government. Two davs later we were liberated."

Three Australians —Messrs. M. H. Ellis, a journalist, Francis Birtles, the overlander, and E. W. Knowles, a Queenslander —left the ( Automobile Association's headquarters in London on February 10 for a journey via Europe and Asia to Australia in an all-British car known as the Imperial Six. The trip was financed by some of the various groups which had been interested in Sir Alan Cobham's flight to Australia.