DESERT BUS SERVICE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 April 1938, Page 10

DESERT BUS SERVICE

NEW ZEALANDER'S SUCCESS IN BAGDAD. CONTRAST WITH CAMEL TRAINS. In the purple haze of sunset ere twilight falls upon the Arabian desert, we swing easily along at forty miles an hour over the ancient trail where once travelled in their richly laden caravans the Chaldeans and the Assyrians, even the Sumerians themselves, at the very dawn of history (writes Marc T. Greene in the ‘-Christian Science Monitor"). This is the road to Bagdad. And if in our luxurious mechanical covered wagon we traverse it today in fashion somewhat less romantic than in the days when the camel trains with the treasures of far Cathay passed this way, we have the consolation of a greater security. Moreover, the ancient travellers had no such comfortable mid-desert tarrying place to which to look forward at the day’s close as awaits us just over the horizon, a fortress-like inn where we of the Beirut-Bagdad bus caravan are about to dine in company with the passengers of the Europe-Orient air service’s great plane. Yonder it stands, “parked” outside the walls nf the desert inn as our huge omnibus, American-made, and carrying forty passengers, turns into the courtyard. And presently we, travellers to the East by a leisurely and picturesque route of many stages, sit down to a lavish meal, here in the heart of Arabia, with a score who are bent on reaching the same destination in the shortest possible time. COMFORT IN THE DESERT. However, each. to his taste, or perhaps to his respective requirements. “Not in vain the distance beacons” to the wanderer of today, and many well-served meals are at his disposal. Here in the desert where- yesterday men journeyed at the cost of hardship and insecurity, we of today lack- none of civilisation’s amenities. Within the high clay walls of the inn there is the gleam of many lights and the savour of well-prepared food. Sharply cold is the night outside, but the dining room is warm and cheery with braziers of glowing coals. We are almost reluctant to leave as, concurrently, come the calls to a resumption of our journeys. “Seats, please, in the bus for Bagdad.” “Take your places in the plane for Bombay.” ( Talk of the romance of travel! As the huge brightly lighted omnibus, said to be the largest passenger vehicle of its kind in the world, sets forth over the starlit desert, the enormous Singa-pore-bound plane rises easily as if questing to those very stars, and heads, after a circle or two like a homing pigeon, for the Persian Gulf, India and the Orient. Not in vain the distance beacons! PICNICKING!

The deep chairs of the omnibus are transformed into something very com-

fortably approximating couches. And as the drivers, alternating in “watches” of two hours each, guide us with uncanny skill among the dunes and over the ridges of the desert, we rest easily until the rose-pink of the eastern sky promises the bright dawn of another day.

Presently we halt for breakfast. Breakfast in the .desert! This is picnicking with a zest, here in the crisp morning air as our drivers, men of exceeding versatility, discover in the capacious recesses of the huge bus all the essentials of an excellent meal, even to the firewood, for the inhospitable desert contributes nothing to our needs.

Time was, and not so long ago, when the trans-desert bus must be well guarded, and you noted, as you halted here with nothing but the bare dunes on every side, that atop two or three of them armed men scanned the wastes with alert eyes. But all that has been dispensed with these half-dozen years now, and the Bedouins, suspicious and alarmed at first, understand that nothing of menace lies in the swift flight across the sands of this strange contrivance of the white man to the order of two enterprising New Zealanders, the Nairn brothers'. BESIDE THE TIGRIS. Once more on the road to Bagdad, and presently we are beside the winding Tigris, saffron-hued and turbulent with the flow of the flood season. The pontoon-bridge sways and dips under our great weight, but we are soon safely across, and then, after an hour or two more across the sands, the minarets and mosques of the city of the caliphs are before us. Some of these old houses that cast their shadows over the tortuous streets were homes of the merchant princes of Bagdad when Ali Baba found the Forty Thieves’ gold. And if you were to enter one of the scarred and battered doorways whose dignity and artistry yet linger to recall the great days of Bagdad, you would find yourself in a tiled patio, or perhaps a little court shaded with two or three royal palms, possibly upon a terrace embowered with flowers and orange trees and looking upon the ancient river. And here at last, permitting fancy to seek its farthest flights, you would find it easy to recreate the city of the Arabian Nights.