Perth Amboy evening news., 1923-11-15
HISTORY RECALLED BY
AIR ROUTE TO D
Travel To Orient Has Been Prob
lem for 1000 Years

Announcement that the British
Air Ministry soon will establish pas
senger, mail and freight service with
India by air with a fleet of Yep
pelins similar TO tie American She
nandcah' recalls the establishment
of many other historic routes to the
Orient in more than 1000 years"
says a bulletin of the National Geo
graphic Society.
Alexander the Great, Marco Polo,
Christopher Columbus. Vasco da
Cana. Ferdinand de Lesseps and the
Berlin-to-Bagdad dreamers are some
of the history makers in whose foot
steps the British Air Ministry is step
ping. Most of the routes to the In
dies have been marked with wars.
yet this is planned in the piping
times of peace.
give days Is the schedule the
British have set for themselves.
Vasco da CANA sailed ten months
before he touched shores of India
and oven the English packets VINO
followed his route around the Cape
of Good Hope took six months. Fast
est steamships make Bombay
through the Suez canal today in
from fourteen to fifteen days. The
hAl III 1N'No 49,
this journey two-thirds.
Aviation shrinks the thousands
of miles which have caused Wastefut
and sometimes fatal delay to races
of men since the beginning of his
tory. Recent experiments of the
American postal service prove the
feasibility of 2S-hour service be-
tween San Francisco and New York.
One hundred years ago 1t took twice
hat number of days to transfer mail
from coast to coast. Over the cara
vans toillng slowly across desert
trails 1000 years old between Cairo
and Bagdad, swift British mail
planes fly, even now making q hun
dred trips between these ancient
centers to one trip by camel.
"Britain's new route to the Orient
was plotted by the late Sir Ross
Smith in his famous 10000 mile trip
to Australia in 1919. He made Aus
tralia from London in twenty-seven
days and touched in the course of
his journey four major units of the
British Commonwealth of Nations,
England, Egypt, India and Australia,
Presumably the route he charted
will be followed by mail Zeppelins.
From London it leads over Paris,
and Lyons in Franco to the Paris
airdome. Then TO Rome and out
over the Mediterranean sea by way
of laramie on the Adriatic side of
Italy's boot. Canea. the historic
seat of an ancient civilization on the
Greek island of Crete, is
station. From there it is but a short
jump to Soil
coast and thence to Cairo on the
Nile. cradle Of civilization.
THE existing Chronological SER
| am IAAn dnI 1XAH am ann &MJllTII AATA
baked hills of the Holy Land and
the desolated wealth OF the Eu-
pirates valley. From Bagdad the
route leads to Basra at the head Of
the Persian gulf where the British
checkmated Germany's Berlin-to-
Bagdad railway; and skirting the
Persian coast finds a station OF re-
fuge at Karachi where the great
Indus river of West India joins the
sea. Delhi, sacred city of India. and
Benales lie conveniently on the base
lines of an inverted isosceles TRAN
gle OF the Great India peninsula
which marks the last leg of the trip
TO Calcutta, government headquar-
ters of the colony.
THE hum of Zeppelin motors Will
drown out much history when hese
RAPID journeys become commonplace
Without so much as a respectful
dip the ships will cross and recross
five famous routes to the east. An
cient Egyptians built a canal to join
the cast and west from Alexandria
on the Nile to Heliopolis now on the
Suez canal, and thence to the city
now known as Suez. When the ca
nal fell into disuse camel caravans
brought spices, silks. curios, indigo,
tea, p~orcelains and Jewels from YES
sells at the head OF the Red Sea to
ships of Venice and Genoa waiting
for cargoes in the Mediterranean.
Another famous route began at
Jaffa, where the Crusaders camped
and wound over the near desert to
Damascus, thence to Bagdad and
down the Euphrates to meet ships
from India, China and Japan. Old
Antioch in Syria was the terminus
of a land passage through Aleppo
to Bagdad. Some ships even found
better service through the Black
Sea, receiving their goods at Ire
bizond, the Armenian city. after it
had come a weary way through
northern Persia, running the gaunt-
let OF nomad tribes which are UNI
comfortable to this day. Alexander
crossed the Hellespont where Con-
stantinople now stands. defeated the
Persians after marching through
Asia Minor. ana went on to India.
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