The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-08-03

world that they have so nearly flown around?
 ''The fact is that we've seen it and we haven't seen it." was how Leigh Wade, the pilot of plane No. 3, put it. What I mean," he explained, lis that we've seen all these foreign eoun' tries from the air, but that isn't like seeing them from the ground And l from the ground we've seen next to nothing of them. What does the actual sightseeing" we've been able to dc amount to? We had few hours to look around at Raugoon and about as l long at Bangkok. We had one day at Constantinople and a day and a half at Tokio (where we were busy all the time and didn't see much of any. thing), and another day in Paris all taken up with entertainments and ceremonies. And that's the sum total up to date. How could we see any 1 thing of all these places? Do you realize what our life has been on this trip? Day after day, for these four months, we've flown from about fur in the mroning until ' or s at night As soon as we've landed, we've had to work on our planes for two or three hours, almost until it was time to turn in. We haven't averaged more than five or six hours sleep a day since we started"
 Much the same kind of observation was made later by Lowell Smith, who added, 'the result is that we all feel that we'd like to get hold of q yacht or some kind of a boat, after a while go on a world cruise and really see all the countries we've flown over and enjoy the hospitality that has been offered us and that we have only been able to sample on the flight.
 Oddly Assorted Memories
 We've got a mass of oddly assorted memories of this trip" Smith went on. "One of the Queerest things of all happenedI at Bangkok, Siam. There we were invited to witness a double beheading. In Siam they only ex- ecute for first degree murder, which is comparatively rare, and a behead- ing is carried out in private, only very distinguished people being allowed to be present. The invitation we received was intended as a great honor. This was a case of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth for the two men who were to lose their heads had killed two other men. We were due to fly a couple of hours before the affair took place and so had to decline the invita- tion,, but I don't believe we'd have wanted to see it, anyway.
 Among the things we'll always re- member," he added, "are the human bodies that we saw floating in the rivers of China and the east generally. It looked to us as if lot of Chinese, Siamese and Burmese considered that the easiest way to get rid of body was to chuck it into the nearest stream. In the river at Bangkok, which runs like a mill race, we saw dead baby floating, surrounded on all sides by the carcasses of animals.
 And while we were being enter tained at Bangoon." continued Smith with a chuckle, "a native servant came up to our host, a wealthy Burmese, and told him that the body of a man that had drifted down the river had lodged against the landing stage. Our host seemed a bit uncertain what to do at first, but then he solved the little difficulty by taking a pole and pushing the deceased out in the stream and starting him on his way again" !"
 What part of the flight stands out most vividly in your memory" Smith was asked.
 T guess it was a thing that hap pened while we were flying over the Sind Desert" said. We were about 70 miles from Karachi when Erik Nelsen's motor began to give trouble. That region is an absolute waste and for quite a while things looked mighty bad. It was only by an exhibition of the pureSt nerve and by nursing his