Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-12-03
TRY TO Join TURKS
Numerous English Adventures
on Way to Africa.
ENDURE MANY HAROSHIPS
Only Possible Way Is to Pass
Through italian Lines.
ONE TELLS OF SHIPWRECE
Left Without Water and With Only
Sea Monsters for Food-Fired
on by Patrol.
ENDURE MANY HARDSHlPS
ONE TELLS OF sHIPWRECE

Special Cablegram to The Star
LONDON, December According to
Lieut.. Herbert Montagu, young proba-
tionary officer of the Royal F'usiliers,
there are many adventurous Engiishmsn
endeavoring to beat their way" to the
Turkish fighting line in spite of the tre-
mendous obstacles irf the path. Lieut..
Montagu mentions a number whom he
met on the way and passed.
Apparently he won the race. and was
the first English adventurer to reach the
front. He left London October 2, and his
earliest letter back is dated from Fort
Bourge, the first Turkish garrisoned out
post in Tripol. He had a wildly exciting
trip to get there.
The only way to the land of the war. he
explains, is through Europe and by sea.
The route overland from the south,
through Africa and across the Tripolitan
border, is impossible, because the wild
fighting Arabs on the borders slay every
one, not asking whether he is friend or
foe.
Run italian Gantlet.
So the young Englishman ran the CANT
let of the Italians in order to reach the
Turks At Sfax, only twelve hours jour
ney from his goal and safety, he was
almost lost.
81 was stopped and searched he mar
rates in letters home, land had 1 not put
my papers in the seat of my trousers be-
fore landing they would have been COL
Jared.
There was news here of seventeen
Englishmen q suppose some of them off,
| Tfalf
guard for Naples, as compromising
papers were discovered on one of them
and they bagged the lot.
Il have to be confoundedly on my guard
Some Englishmen have got through to
Tripoli, l hear, and two are down vita
cholera. There are four more who sailed
from Bubin, having arrived there by
camel from Gerbas, and I suppose they
got through all right.
There are five here with me in Sax,
all at different hotels. Three OF them are
taking a boat from here to Gerbas, and
then camel it from there. Two are COM
ing with me, but none of them think We
shall get through. Pessimists!"
Run the Turkish Patrol.
His plan was to cross from Sfax in a
chartered jugger, run through the Turk
ish patrol, land on the coast good way
from Tripoli and then make across the
desert to the Turkish post But his first
essay met dismal failure, because hi.
little craft was sighted by a gunboat.
There was q regular stampede Il
about-ship,'' he writes. THAT confound
ed gunboat chased US for heaven. know!
how long, and fired half a dozen shots
but as we were almost invisible in the
gloom the shots went about quarter OF
a mile wide. 1t was funny to see the
sailors on our old cockleshell fairly buzz
down TO the engine room to lend hand
at firing, and, pom my word, the old tub
moved like comeback to Sfax."
His next sortie was yet more exciting
but successful. He relates: Il char
tered a thirty-ton two-masted dhow al
Sfax, the only one that would go. 1t Is
a four-day journey under ordinary cir
cumstances. but the second day we ran
into the sirocco and a gale came on. We
were blown 100 miles off, onto sand
bank.
Ate Their Food Raw.
1.-The gale continued four days and we
stuck there that time. The food ran out
but we shot a pOrpoise and caught an
octopus, and ate them raw. Then we
got off, but lay three days becalmed.
1.-The water gave out during the calm,
and we had no food but the porpoise and
the octopus-very salt. The last two
days We had nothing to drink. We sight
ed a cruiser-Italian, 1 suppose-but it
did not see us.
Before L left Sfax 1 met Seppings
Wright of the London Central News
Agency. He had been trying for four
weeks previously to 6, through to the
Turks. All the other correspondents are
with the Italians, bottled up in Trfpoli.
L offered him a passage in my dhow IL
he chose to take the risk, and he ac-
cepted. So it is to him and myself that
l referred as We
Now We are at Bourge; it is believed
that he is the only correspondent who
has succeeded in getting to the Turks.
The heat is awful. Thank goodness, we
got through, that's ALL"