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About The Omaha morning bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 1922-1927 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 10, 1925)
U. S. Birdmen Span Desert Lands What God Forgot” Peek Down at - Sacred Crocodiles, Leper Colony 'JM£By I.OWEUi THOMAS . L (Copjrlght. 1925.) Upon arrival at Karachi, the sea port at the mouth of the Indus, the * world fliers had to remain long enough to Install new en gines and overhaul ' Huh- planes before venturing across the ^ wild mountains of , Baluchistan and the r/s^eut bowel , Persian and Ara J^^^fblan desert. Instead of stop ping at a hotel Brit ish officials took _ them to their bun galows. Several stayed with the Eng lish commissioner of Hind, who is the chief civilian administrator of all the vast desert region in western India just north of the Arabian sea. Soveral were the guests of the collec tor who is the chief financial head of the local government. But “Les’’ Arnold happened to draw the honor of stopping at the home of Major General Cook, one of the highest ranking officers In the Indian nnny. Of course “Lea” was still a .‘.'shavetail'’ lieutenant and the lncongujly of being waited upon for two days h.v a major general was a novel’ and gratifying experience. “That first afternoon when we ar rived in Karachi, l mean the after noon of, July 4.'’ says “Lea” Arnold, “we were all much relieved to get down out of the air, especiaal Erik and Jack whose engine had been dis Intergratlng and flying to hits during the last hour on our way down from Multan. AVe stayed out. at the field and worked on the planes until dark, and I wag smeared from head to foot With oil and grease that when Gen eral Cook’s 'Rolls Royce,’ complete with chaufeur and footman, took me to his white mansion I felt like the ragged urchin’ in the story hooks who dreams that he is a prince or a mil lionalre. Good British Repair Shops. '/Karachi Is the repair depot for the royal air force In India. There are big shops for the overhauling of motors, the rebuilding of wings, and the set ting up the planes. Jn fact, It is one of the finest establishments of Its kind in the world. The shops are all hous ed In well-equipped, attractive stucco and concrete buildings and there are many officers and enlisted men of the R._ A- F. In Karachi. They inlst ed on placing the entire depot at our disposal. Although we accepted the assistance of a number of expert mechanics who proved to be unusu ally competent and careful workmen, we did our own changing of motors and inspection. "Saturday evening, July g, the royal air force entertained us at din ner and Commander Hicks, head of the R. A. F. at Karachi, made a witty speech in which he said he had seen all of the expeditions attempt ing to circle the w-orld and that all of them passed tills way. He went on to mention several British, a couple of French expeditions, an elaborate Ital ian attempt in the course of which Hve on,six planes were smashed, and they had'all passed through Karachi, flying from west to east. Then he added that Americans had the rep titation of always doing things dif ferent from any one else, and here Ihey^re doing it again in trying to fly around the globe from the op posite direction. But he said they were delighted to see this, if only for the sake of variety. Then he added that we had already flown farther than any of the competitors and that the others had all crashed beforej cover ing the mileage we had made between Los Angeles and Karachi. Make Early Morning Hop. “Monday morning wo left calls for 3. Genqcal Cook even got up at that unearthly hour to have breakfast wdth me and escort me to the field. At fi:30, shortly after sunrise, wo taxied across the airdrome, circled around over the rapidly-growing sea port which, as a result of the vast lrrigatlpfi projects of British India, is one of the principal grain ports of the world, and then we headed west toward Persia and Bagdad. “On -the outskirts of Karachi we flew over a pond In which sacred crocodiles ara kept by the Hindoos, and W’e also passed a great leper col ony. AVlth all that the British have clone to Introduce western civilization, with its sanitation and moderan medl-' cal methods, the east Is still the east. There ara millions in India who live on ths verge of starvation. There are tens of millions who do not know whether <Amerlca ** the name of one of their 30,000,000 gods and who do not even know there Is difference between Americans and Britishers. There are hundreds of millions who believe In reincarnation and think that In our various lives we are In turn cows, vultures, crocodiles, mos quitoes, and hooded cobras. India Is still a land of mystery, romance and startling contrast. The British have done much despite the fact that In this one country they are ruling one fifth of the entire population of the world around which we were flying. We do not envy them their task. Surely It must he a thankless one. Although we were glad to have visit ed Hindustan, we were gladder still to leaved ^Fyyliig Pail Into Fire, “But as we turned and took our lust looft' at India, before flying on across Tile Kir Thar mountains to Baluchistan, our thoughts and our sympathies were with our royal air force friends and our other hosts whom we were leaving behind In that fascinating and mysterious hut torrid, land. But tv* noon discovered that In leaving India we were merely flying out of the frying pan Into the fire. Of all the countries we passed over, Baluchistan turned out to lie the dreariest, the deadliest, the most In hospitable, and the hottest. It Is a des ert land'bdunded by India on the east, hy Persia on the west, by the little ltnown country of Afghanistan on the north. Hid the Arabian sea on the so nth. It Is a country that onn he classified only with the Innermost part of the Sahara desert, and the un explored Boha el Khali or great emp tineas of southern Arahta. Although It has belonged nt various times to the old Babylonian empire of bJeburhad wczaai, to the Persian empire of Uiu ius, and to the rulers of Afghanistan, today, like so much of the rest of the planet, it is under, the control of the British. Orer Desolate Country. < "Baluchistan is certainly thff land that, ttod forgot. For hours and hours on end we flew without seeing a hu man being, or a tree, or even a bit of cactus. Sometimes we passed over jagged saw tooth mountains 5,000 feet high. Or we would look down on a desolate region made up of great gashes in the crust of the earth. As we flew over this part of our route we felt as though we were circum navigating some other planet; some lost world where human beings no longer live, a planet as withered and full of cracks and cratgfs as the moon "All of the airmen who have made long flights front Europe to Japan and from England to India and Aus talla, have passed this way. Sir Ross Smith, who was the first to reach India through the air from the west, came this way. Then he afterwards flew over Baluchistan In the dual engined Vickers Viniy In which he won the $50,000 award for being the first to fly half way around the world from England to Australia. "But the most daring flight of them all was made a few months after Ross Smith passed this way. It was the flight of J.ieuts. Ray Barer nml John McIntosh, who staggered half way around the globe from England to Australia, In a secondhand DH-0. They flew across th* Mediterranean and even across the South seas from Singapore to the Dutch Hast Indies, and on to Port Darwin without pon toons. Their wheezy old bus caught on fire once. As they flew over Mount Vesuvius they were nearly Jerked In to the crater. •Tor 450 miles we flew across Ba luchiatan, over a region where a forced landing would have meant a fatal crash. At last we could tell from our maps that we had crossed into Persia, and in less than an hour we descended, at the little seaport of Chahbar, on the Gulf of Oman, mere ly to refuel and take right oft that same day for Bandar Abbas and the land of dates, camels, and Persian rugs. Head the next installment of the story of the thrilling round-the-world flight in Tlie Omaha Sunday Bee to morrow. 20 on Waiting List for Shoes Reavis Case Cited in Plea for Funds for Young sters. Cold and privation drove Mary Reavis to suicide in her Imre home, 809 South Eighteenth street, this week. You would be surprised to learn how many other such homes there are In this city where dally the giim specter stares Into the faces of poor and helpless children. Can't Patch Shoes. Homes where there is no longer a father. Homes where a mother car rles the heroic struggle along against great odds. Homes wRere shoes form the big problem. They can sew and patch their clothes, but not shoes. So readers of The Omaha Bee keep up the Free Shoe fund which pro vides shoes for the children In such homes. School teachers do the In vestlgatlng of each case and do It without a cent of coi>t to the fund. Only the most*urgent rases are taken care of. If the child has any other possible meuns of getting shoes the Free Shoe fund will not give shoes. Thu* every dollar goes only where the greatest need is. 20 on Waiting I-1st. More than 20 are on the waiting list now. Tour check, cash or money order, sent to The Omaha Bee, Free Shoe fund will do a great good right now. Send it. Arknmvloikrti lirr^tofwr* • S1.907_Z.I_ I I Mil III I II ■■■ I IIH—T1 Cash . |*2 A Friend .. \ I, |„ S . - Hillt and Mart Hammond. O'Neill. Neh. ... I «J»i whirl.-, l-elche .... { !*[ \ Friend. Tlu-dford. >eh... » "M A Friend »f .llio Children . - IK' TolM . Wymore Club Opposes $48,000,000 Road Bill Wymore, Jan. 9.—Wymore Com munlly club, having a membership of 98, has Rune on recnud against the bill which the Nebraska Good Roads association Intends to have Intro duced at the present session of the state legislature, providing for the: appropriation of $18,000,00(1 to be. spent in the next six years to build | ,500 miles of paved roadway and 1,200 miles of graveled roads. It is considered that the proposed project is too extensive ami will un reasonably increased already exorbl tant taxes, and that the transfer of road building and maintenance from the county boards to a central agency, as provided by the propose t MU, nill destroy Hie fundamental principles of local government. The club also opposes the proposed gasoline tax and auto- license redo. - tlon bills, tvhleh are expected to bh given much consideration at the present session of the legislature. Stolen Ring Returned. Atchison. Kan.. Jan. 9.—Jeff l. Connard, Burlington railway brake man, of Wymore, was arrested here and charged with stealing a $250 dia mond ring from Warren Fauver. a fellow brakeman, at Wymore, who said he had the ring strung on his watch chain and locked with hie stree' clathes in a locker In the caboose The ring was produced by Connard after a grilling. I ’ Saturday iL Or kin Biros BE slZldly | Gigantic Purchase of ! Manufacturers’ [ Surplus Stocks I of Beautiful Fall and Winter j COATS‘m | DRESSES II Thrown into the Year’s Most .Never before in the history of this store have we offered such startling values in fresh, crisp new winter wearables as is made pos sible through these huge purchases. Amazim Sale Our entire first floor will be devoted to the selling of dresses, while our immense second floor will be devoted exclusively to the sale of coats. At an Average of Here is a sale that overshadows by big odds the most extraordinary values of which Omaha can boast. Our buyers invaded the markets at the psycho logical hour; we entered our bids for certain surplus stocks found in the showrooms of some of America’s foremost makers of coats and dresses; buyers were few; our bids were accepted and starting Saturday, we pass our wonderful money savings on to you. Recent Clearance Sales so reduced our stocks that we were one of the few stores in a position to take advantage of the enormous money-saving pos sibilities afforded by the purchase of manufacturers’ surplus stocks. Come Saturday—Own Your New Coat and Dress at a Price Less Than the Cost of Material Alone Among the Many Hundreds of Your Every Idea Is Met in These Coats 1 You will find gorgeous fur-trimmed coats, coats in every A showing so marvelously broad that it matters not for imaginable color, coats for the miss, the small woman, the what occasion you may desire a new dress, it is here in average size woman and the large woman. Coats in such your co,or fabric and at a price f.r, far below what wonderful array that you are certain to find a most satis- . factory selection. you might anticipate to pay. » MANDALAY EXCELLO FORMOSA VELVETTE Canton Crepes Crepe de Chines Georgettes TRUVENETTE FURLAINE NEWZELLA Satins Brocades Jacquards FLAMINGO VELORIA ROT DE LAINE LUSTROSIA ^|r Twill Cords Flannels Beaded All Colors —■ LMMML f'M __;l ■■!!, _! _gll I
