BY CAR FROM JERUSALEM

Evening Star, Issue 21743, 11 June 1934, Page 5

BY CAR FROM JERUSALEM

A thrilling journey Motoring across Asia Minor and the Balkans, and through Europe to England, can provide many thrills and a vast amount of interest and enjoyment. A young. South; African architect did this trip last year, with a party of archaeologists from Palestine in a one and a-half-ton lorry, which had been reconditioned and converted into a tourer and caravan (says ‘John o’ London’s Weekly’). Leaving the digging camp in the Judean foothills, thirty miles from Jerusalem, on May 7, this adventurous little company reached London on June 26, their, log showing a total mileage of 3,9331. The man at the wheel throughout was Mr Herbert M'Williamg, and his narrative is contained in ‘ The Diabolical.’ Like many others, he was disappointed here and there in the Holy Land: — After seeing' the sort of religious Wembley that exists in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, I was inclined to keep intact my illusions 1 still had concerning the life of Christ, for a more meretricious display of relics and shrines would be difficult to imagine. Then Damascus proved a little too sophisticated to harmonise with its romantic role of the Flower of the Desert. The Mosque, however, has impressive dignity. “ High up among the painted rafters doves wheeled in the gloom, dodging the echoes of the prayers which a blind man was chanting as he rocked to and fro on a dais beneath an embroidered canopy.” Baalbek was grand in the cold, dramatic moonlight. “ The scale of the place was so terrific. Men seemed like insects beside the enormous drums _ of the fallen columns.” Suspected of a raid for relics here, the party was held up for a detailed inspection of their cal' and its contents.

The journey was full of humours and perils. There are no signposts in Asia Minor, and often the R.A.C. itinerary was useless. At Kirsehir, on the road to Angora, a small boy of nine was found able to speak excellent French and a few words of English. “ Fancy a schoolchild in a Devonshire village being able to speak Turkish.” In the Austrian Tyrol Anti-Hitler slogans were found painted in white on the tarred roads; with alterations made by the opposing side. The tourists burned all their litter after camping at a religious rite. The author gives much practical information on stores, equipment, details of car and engine, maps, and languages,.