A PLUCKY LADY.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 March 1921, Page 5

A PLUCKY LADY.

TREKS THROUGH DESERT. SOME TERRIBLE EXPERIENCES. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. London, March 4. With the assistance of The Times Mrs. Rosita Forbes accomplished a remarkable journey in the Libyan desert, penetrating to the oasis of Kufra, the headquarters of the Senussi, which has been only once previously visited by a European, 40 years ago. Mrs. Forbes is young and pretty and had an adventurous 500 mile trek, accompanied only by a few black soldiers, slaves of the Bedouins. Her journey nearly ended at Jadabia, 80 miles into the desert, when a murder plot was discovered in the nick of time and she escaped in the darkness after drugging the treacherous natives. She journeyed south for several days, suffering tortures from hunger and thirst and subsisting on a meagre diet of dates and camels’ milk. When picked up by a wandering caravan it was only by maintaining her disguise and praying five times daily that she was able to escape murder as a Christian dog. She outwitted the suspicious, murderous Arabs repeatedly, until a friendly Senussi* chief sent a caravan from Jadabia. The undaunted woman, thus placed in command of 18 camels, a number of soldiers, two slave girls and a number of slave guides, proceeded to the oasis. It was a wearing journey, sandstorms and skeletons of camels being the only break in the monotony of the sand They lost their way, their water gave out' and their food dwindled, saddles and mats were torn up for fodder for the camels, the soldiers became mutinous, but the discovery of an uncharted well saved their lives. The Times is publishing a description of Mrs. Forbes’ discoveries, including a mountain range, new wells and the mysterious