THE CLAN MACFARLANE.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 January 1916, Page 5

THE CLAN MACFARLANE.

A FEW MORE SURVIVORS Received Jan. 17, 11.5 p.m. London, .lan. 17. The captain and five more- men of the Clan MacFarlano's crow liavo been picked up and landed at Marseilles, OL'R FLEET ON THE TIGRIS. ■SHIP THAT START LI) LIFE AS AN AEROPLANE. Writing of Hie Briti.sh capture of Kut-al-Amam, 120 miles south of Bagdad, Sir Mark Sykes says:— A river war presumes ships, and ships presume sailors, the Royal Navy and the Royal Indian Marine provide the latter, and the bounty of heaven, the Ottoman Government, and a certain sense of humor which is inseparable, from Britishers afloat has provided a licet. The numbers and construction of the various classes of vessel forming our fleet are secrets which cannot be divulged. There can be no harm in describing the outward appearance of these craft which are familiar enough to the Ottoman forces.

There are paddle steamers which now waddle along with a barge on either side, one. perhaps containing a portable wireless station, and the other bullocks for heavy guns ashore: there are once respectable tugs which stagger along under a weight of boiler plating and are armed with guns of varying calibre; there is a launch which pants indignantly between batteries of 4.7's looking like a sardine between two cigarettes boxes; there is a steamer with a Christmas tree growing amidships, in the branches of which its officers fondly imagine they are invisible to friend or foe. There is also a ship which is said to .have started life as an aeroplane in Singapore, shed its wings but kept its aerial propeller, took to water and became a hospital; its progress is attended by a sustained series of detonations which serves it as an escort among t*> Arabs who attribute its method of progress to Iblis alone. And this fleet is the cavalry screen, advance guard, rear guard, flank guard, railway, general headquarters, heavy artillery, line of communication, supply depot, police force, field ambulance, aerial hangar, and base of supply of the Mesopotamlan Expedition. Those in England who are interested in this expedition should always bear in mind this fleet when reading the despatches, and picture following in its wake flocks of white sails spread bellying in fair curves and peaking up sharp angles against the sky.