INTO THE UNKNOWN.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20174, 28 February 1931, Page 15

INTO THE UNKNOWN.

DESERT JOURNEY OF 900 MILES. (CKITED PRESS ASSOCIATION—BY ELECTRIC TELECIIAPH—COPTEIOHT.) , ? LONDON, February 26. A dispatch from Mr Bertram Thomas describes a camel journey of -900 miles across Kuba-el-Ivhali. It took 58 days, of which 45 were'spent travelling. Hewore Arab kit, but, otherwise journeyed as an undisguised Christian. ■ He left Dhufar (on the Arabian sea coast,. a little more than half-way between Aden and the entranco to the Gulf of Oman) with an escort of 30 Arabs and 40 and Arrived a!t Doliah (on the Persian Gulf, at tho eastern end of the district of Oman) with 13 Arabs and 18 camels, the numbers having been progressively reduced until the menace of the Hadhramaut raiders was left behind. "

JProm Shisur they plunged westwards into the unknown for hundreds of waterless miles, skirted the southern edge of the mighty bulwark of red sands fringed with dunes, the habitat of the ostrich and the antelope, ,the former being almost extinct, and the latter plentiful. Numerous very deep caravau tracks were found, giving . evidence- of- centuries of usage. , The 'Bedouins call it tho Road to TJbar, their legendary city of prehistoric" days. Tho sands encroached Southward, according to local tribesmen, atfd buried beneath'them is the "Atlantis" of Buba-el-Khali. Though hundreds of miles.' from the sea, and at 1000 ft. altitude,'' the sand is strewn with.soa shells and fossils. Prowodujg' nolrlh-Vvpst, .th'e .pjW ty, encountered sutgiAg sands, 1 a jjfegg booming sound being* caused by''the >e£iofl of'the frind K«mong tho.; sandeliffs resembling a ship's NorlJi «f ; the 23rd parallel the. aJtitude falls to,sea level-and even below- it," where Mr Thomas discovered a lake.of salt water 'seven miles long. Pn the rest of, the lino jo£ martsh. was plentiful, bafc brackish and undrinkable. The whole; region appears to have been undersea late geological times. The inh&bit&ntksre nomad tions of the El-Kathir and El Murrn. tribes, who subsist' entirely .oivcaiael'fli milk. Bavsva and bustards-^which"a-re wide-spread—foxes,>hares, ,an<l • lizards j are common, al?o ;wolves, wild- 'i eats,* rats. All the mammals 'arc; of the light sand colour of their environment. ... ' Commenting .on the* dispatch, Bft Arnold Wilson <(tho * distinguished-' authority on 'the districts' near the Per-, sian Gulf) states that ' the-, caravan tracks in. almost the centre- df tha aa«d« seem .proof thsttheArab legends*. -of abandoned cities 4ve'Wl*founded,"' No rumour of the existence of a salt ldko was previously known, but singing sands have been recorded, in the Gobi' Desert, Afghanistan, and the J 1 Sinai 'Peninsula. Mr Thomas's achievement? deserved to rank "with those of "Stanlfev'' Shackleton, and Scott. ' - 11 - . i I f . I . iW . 1 ii iJ _ J|i in ► £ 4 r&<.