IN ARMOR

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17028, 13 August 1929, Page 8

IN ARMOR

TRIBE IN AFRICAN WILD? MOTORISTS' ADVENTURES CAPETOWN', duly 28. In old Northern Nigeria, there is a tribe of Moslems who wear old English armor, which was captured by their ancestors during t Ik; Crusades, many centuries ago. This is the story told hy a man who has just completed one o, the most remarkable African motor journeys ever made. i he man is Mr. 11. 1?. Cope Morgan. a mining engineer, ol I'ukimi, Northern Nigeria. With his wile, Mr. Morgan has travelled 7500 miles through Central Africa to Capetown in 14 weeks. Mr. and Mrs. Morgan have sailed for England in the mail steamer. After spending a holiday in the Homeland, tiiev will return to Hukuru-. bor a, thousand miles Mr. and Mrs. Morgan travelled through territory in French Equatorial Africa, where a breakdown might have meant death. "No food could be bought, and there was not a petrol dump along the route," said Mr. Morgan, when telling the storv of his epic journey. "First tlwre was desert to cross, then thorn bush, thicker hush, and finally the heavy jungle of the Congo. My wife was the lirst white woman to travel through this wild territory." The first great sight encountered was a celebration of the end of Ramadan by Moslem tribesmen- in Northern Nigeria. •'These men are splendid horsemen." said Mr. Morgan. '"We saw a thousand of them at the gallop, many wearing old English armor—shining helmets and breastplates, which their ancestors captured during the Crusades. The beat Was the greatest hardship during thai part of the run. The temperature would rise from 52 degrees at dawn to 125 degrees at noon. Fresh rood went bad quickly, and the party lived on tinned provisions. Mr. Morgan found modern road signs '•i the middle "f Hie uimde. Many of them had evidently been erected by natives »ho diet not know the meanings of the warning boards. "Dangerous Corner." one hoard would proclaim, and the motorists would smile as they noticed that- it was placed in the middle of a bridge. Only once did Mr. Morgan take a. steamer in his adventure down Africa. That was when he crossed Lake Tanganyika. The rainy season had made the' notorious Rahora Flats impassable. Here it was that previous expeditions have eo.ne to irricf: Mr. Gerry Houwer and Mr. Laeev, who have both made the jotirncv from Cape to Cairo, dream of the Rahora Flats whenever they have nightmare During the journey, Mr. Morgans rook bov. a Hausa, lost a tooth. He. announced that: lie would buy '« H<| tooth to replace it when they reached Johannesburg. From thai moment the cook's Mecca was Johannesburg. When they reached the Gold City, the cook sot out in search of his new gold tooth. He went out shopping, clad in his flowing Hausa robes, ami followed by an admiring crowd ol mine natives. ■ ... The first shitf he entered in bis quest for the tooth was—an optician s.