NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 60, 4 December 1917, Page 8

NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS

ESCAPE OF STPANDED BRITISH SOLDIERS. News has reached his relatives thai Sergeant J. Harte, of the Inland Water Transport, is alive after having escaped murder by Arabs following shipwreck in a small craft oil an island in tlio Arabian Sea. In tow of a tug, Sergeant Hartc and a party were proceeding from Aden to Muscat oil a barge when a hurricane sprang up ana extinguished tho fires of the tug, which foundered with all hands. The tow ropes were cut, and the barque driftea about for many days. At last the boai was driven ashore with its occupants under a cliff on the Arabian coast. Immediately the craft was sighted 3(Ji.Arabs, armed with knives, swarmeu aboard and looted it. Tliey then threatened tho crew with death.

"Nothine, however occurred," says Sergeant Harte, "until the following day, when a little before daybreak the Arabs began to fight among themselves. Whilst our guard left us to join,in the fight we crawled away, and then escaped over the mountains into the desert, over which we tramped for nine days, practically without food oi water. Eventually we arrived at a place where friendly natives lent us a dhow of about 250 tons.. ( After eight days of further privation we wero taken on board, a warship which had been dispatched to the scene of the wreck."