AMONG THE ARABS

Taranaki Daily News, 12 July 1929, Page 11

AMONG THE ARABS

FOREIGN LEGION ESCAPEE

AN ENGLISHMAN’S EXPERIENCES. The assertion was made .in Liverpool by a young man named Sydney Bell Tomlinson, who a few months ago escaped from the French Foreign Legion, that an Englishman educated at Oxford, whose father is a medical officer of an English town, is living as an Arab with a nomad tribe of Bedouins. “I had heard from ’ Arabs about an English doctor . living with the Bedouins,” said Tomlinson, in an interview, "and when I and an American named Betts decided to escape, we thought this Englishmen, if we could find him, might help us. When we. were out reconnoitring Betts and I made our effort to get away. After overpowering an Arab sentry, we persuaded a girl who came to a waterpool to take us to the white doctor.

“She guided us to a tent which we watched for three hours before we pulled at one of the ropes. From the tent appeared a man dressed as an Arab with a typical Bedouin beard, but with a white skin. “After we had become friendly, he told .us that he had run away to join the Legion and had escaped to the Arabs, who had looked after him. He was now an important man in the tribe, and seemed satisfied with his desert life.

“He thought when we challenged him that the Legion had succeeded in tracking him at last. . “Disguised as Arabs, we reached Oran, where we found a ship in which we worked pur passages -to Marseilles, In another yesspl I reached; England, and I-amnow.anxious' tb reach-. Canada, haoir in Americ.ft*'A<7r;: .-i-'