Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1916-09-01
Over the Desert
Copyright, 1916, by the Mcclure
Newspaper Syndicate.
BY M. QUAD

~ ~ NAoJ -
the year 1862, after a year and q half
In other parts of India. and very soon
thereafter it was announced in the
local papers that Professor Mazam.
the celebrated French aeronaut, would
soon make an ascension from the pub
lie gardens" Three or four days later
| ran across the professor and was sur
prised and gratified to find him to be
none other than al old friend whom l
had travelled with in China.
Mazam was now going into balloon
Ing just for the fun and adventure 1t
might bring him, and when he invited
me to accompany him ON his first trip
l was not five seconds in accepting the
invitation. We packed the ear with
provisions enough to last a week, took
rifles, revolvers and ammunition along
and made all preparations for a long
journey.
Without her burden of baggage the
balloon could have carried five or six
men. As it was, she shot up like a
bird when all vas ready to let go, and
LII a L oC(O1t0D LDC lily oid L u
Dor were far below US. We at once
started on our journey, making a pace
of about fifteen miles an hour.
When night came we added 500 fett
to our altitude as an offset to the dew,
and as the weather was fine we both
lay down to sleep. l awoke twice dur
ing the night, but to find all quiet, and
uphap 7 fr1rt,aI Out fret OF entnriaa ~
was to find the Arabian coast almost
under our feet, and soon we were sail
ing over land.
We had no sooner left the water than
the breeze began to subside, and our
pace was reduced to five or six miles
per hour. We knew that a countercur-
rent would soon be met with, ana both
of us were looking over the edge of
the basket at the morning panorama
below when we suddenly espied a ma
tive village, 1t was, rather, the camp
of some wandering tribe, all the shell
tiers being Of canvas OF skin. We saw
camels, asses. goats and horses, with
many people moving about, and we
had only got sight of them when they
saw us. Some fell down and others
ran away, and we We're laughing at
their fright when we heard the report
of a gun and the sing of a bullet.
cover with the ballast!' shouted Ma
zam, and the next instant we were so
far above them that their horses ap-
peared to be mere specks.
Along in the afternoon, while So ling
JNo,A 4L,-A,l SD .I@,,. A. - r4I,
at a slow rate, we came to an open
country witch seemed to be destitute
of human life, and the professor gu
nounced that we would descend and
replenish our stock of water and see
was to be seen. After the anchor
had trailed along the ground for about
a hundred yards it caught In the limbs
of a fallen tree, and we 0 0 hauled
our craft down and secured her. We
were within ten rods of q small water
course, and while / was filling our wa
ter keg Mazam shot a few birds, AVID
we cooked and ate them on the SPOT
and decided to make a night of 1t
where we were. l Judge it was abolt
midnight when Mazam shook me aid
whispered:
"Come; here is a sight worth seeing.
Be careful not to make any unnechs-
sary noise.@
AS l looked over the basket l So W
two immense lions, standing about
twenty feet apart and facing eaeh
other.
The animals approached each other
slowly with growls of defiance, each
carefully lifting his paws, but they did
not diminish the distance over a rod
before both stopped and stood as II
cut from stone. Suddenly one of tile
beasts made a rush so swift that we
could not follow him with our eyes,
and they grappled and rolled over ard
over on the ground. Just as We
thought that both would be killed IN
the fray one of them turned tail and
ran, being hotly pursued by the victor.
The remainder of the night passed
without incident, and as daylight cane
a breeze from the north came with It.
After a cold bite we lifted u anchor
and were off, but we had scarcely be-
gun to move before We found ourselves
above a long, drawn out caravan Wnten
had just taken up Its line of march.
Perhaps all knew our craft to be a bal
loon; perhaps they believed 1t to be
some great bird At any rate they be
gan firing at US, and the very first bal
let struck the basket 1t was an open
country, and such men as We're mount
ed on horses could keep up with us.
snow, them said Mazam as the btl-
lets continued to sing about us, "over-
board with that key of water, all extra
clothing, everything to give US a Eft
out of range
Inside OF an hour the balloon began
to approach the earth again, and as We
were driving toward Murbat we threw
over all the rest of the ballast, even Ia
Guiding the ~spyglass and the box of
bread. In a short time we began to de