THE WAR IN TRIPOLI

Southland Times, Issue 17025, 25 April 1912, Page 5

THE WAR IN TRIPOLI

TRAFFIC THROUGH THE BOSPHORUS. (By Telegraph.—Press Association. —Copyright!. CONSTANTINOPLE, April 23. The Government proposed reopening * narrow channel between the mines In the Dardanelles for neutral shipping, but the commander of the forts declined the responsibility while Italian warships were in the Archipelago. An unprecedented collection of vessels laden with cereals, flour, and petroleum is In the Bosphorus. NEW XTAT.TAN BASH. ROME, April *t. ' The Italians have occupied which will be used as a base for victualling, and also for the repression of contraband trade. death op ehver bet. ROME, April S*. Advices from Cairo state that Envff Bey, while homeward bound, succumbed at Marint from gangrene, the result of a wound sustained in battle, and that the Turkish authorities are concealing: his death. PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. CONSTANTINOPLE. April 24. Received April 25, 1.0 a.m. M The Porte has accepted the Powerf mediator, conditional on the maintenance of Turkey’s sovereign rights and Italy’s evacuation of Tripolitania. A WAR GODDESS IN TRIPOLI. When the Arabs chased the Italian Infantry out of the trenches at Gargaresll on 18th January, their leader was an Arab Amazon whom Mr Alan Ostler, special correspondent of the Dally Express with the Turkish army in Tripoli* describes as a war goddess. Describing the scene, Mr Ostler writes: — “The attackers, with their white draperies tossing and fluttering, and their voices hoarsely shouting war cries, came on like a tidal .wave that broka over the trenches. “At their head was a figure, cloakedand hooded in russet brown, who carried no weapon but a staff of olive wood, and. whose voice rang high and shrill abova the shouts and rattling rifle fire. Tha. face beneath the russet hood was of so deep a brown as to be almost black. “The eyebrows met in a savage frown over keen glittering eyes; the jaw was square and heavy, the nose short and straight with widely distended nostrils; and a collar of panther’s teeth glistened* against the broad brown bosom. “With a voice like the scream of an angry stallion this figure alternately menaced and exhorted the Arabs, and shrleked out terrible curses against tho Italians. “The desert men swept up and over the earthworks, and their fearless leader, leaping into the trenches, stooped, plunged an arm elbow deep in blood, and then stood, with a dripping right hand flung upwards, a statue of the Goddess of African battle. “For it was a woman, a Soudanese she-warrlor, that fought In the ranks with the men at Gargaresh. It was her voice, bidding cowards hide with children in the tents, and urging brave men to find a sure road to Paradise under the Italian guns, that maddened the Arabs as only the voices of their womenfolk can. “She was struck by a fragment of’ shell before the charge began; but she went forward. shaking her bleeding;: hand in tho faces of the men, and bidding them earn glorious wounds likehers. After the fight she was the heroine of the camp at the Gardens of the Children of Adhem, and strode among the tents, one hand bandaged and one brandishing the staff of olive wood. “This woman chanted fiercely, triumphantliy, as Deborah chanted throughthe lines of the Israelite tents when the host of Siseia was overthrown. Turks and Arabs alike praised her courage; but she wanted not praise but a gun. and she came to the door ofthpltetßiOf thfl Turkish leaders and made her petition there. And a carbine was given to her; “She shook it aloft, threw back her head, and closed her eyes, and sent out a high ringing cry * — a musical, longdrawn note. From the Arab tents on every side came shout after shout in answer: the camp hummed like a hire at swarming bees.”