Page 28 - To Dragma October 1929

26 T o D R A G M A

Arabian Desert to Damascus. This t r i p was quite exciting, for the Arabs
are not very friendly. I n fact just a few weeks before we went across,
a car was captured by the brigands. Now planes are sent out to scout
about the country side and no less than three cars may start out at a
time. There were just three in our convoy; the bus with seven or eight
passengers and two drivers, and two small cars without any passengers.
There are no roads in the desert and no signs of life. I t certainly was a
tractless wilderness—with nothing to see at all except mirages. Those
were endless. Beautiful lakes and palm trees and even pretty, white
houses which melted into air as we reached them. The motor transport
furnished us w i t h individual box lunches which we ate as we rode along,
and then at three or four o'clock in the afternoon, we stopped, right out
in the blue and had tea and cheese and crackers on the desert. T h a t
night we spent in a fort—a real, high-walled, steel-doored fort—where we
were given supper, a place to sleep f o r four or five hours and breakfast at
four-thirty in the morning. Five-thirty saw us on our way, and I've never
been colder than I was for the next few hours. Deserts certainly are
cold places before the sun rises. I had a heavy coat and a blanket, and
my teeth chattered for hours. We had another lunch en route and got
to Damascus before dark, safe and sound. We had only two bits of
excitement on the t r i p . One was when the driver's coat caught fire f r o m
a box of matches in the pocket. He threw the coat out of the window
and when the fire extinguisher wouldn't work, we drove off leaving it
burning on the sand. Another time the first day when we were all ner-
vously looking for Arab raids, one of the huge tires blew out with a most
awful bang. Everybody screamed and fully expected to be robbed and
perhaps knifed—but all was well. I t was only a tire.

Damascus is full of interesting bazaars and mosques. I t was there we
walked down the street called Straight, which is mentioned in the Bible.
After a few days of sightseeing and shopping we drove to Jerusalem
through the Lebanon H i l l s , crossed the River Jordan, skirted the Sea
of Gallilee, and passed through Nazareth where we saw the site of
Joseph's carpenter shop. We drove up the M o u n t of Olives, went to
Bethlehem and saw where Christ was born. I n Jerusalem we saw where
Christ was crucified, where He was buried and the stone which was rolled
away when He rose f r o m the dead. Our two days were crowded seeing
everything, and then we missed a beautiful mosque which was closed to
the public because i t was Friday—Friday being the Mohammedan equiva-
lent to our Sunday.

From Jerusalem we drove back to Damascus, then up to Baalbek
where we saw some interesting Roman ruins. Then we took the train
for Constantinople, and through Belgrade and Buda-Pest to Vienna. The
three-day journey through Turkey, Yugo-Slavia, Hungary and Austria
was very exciting, for us for we had to pass through customs i n each
country and change our money into the currency of the country we were
passing through each meal. A l l that i n English when we couldn't find
a soul who spoke or understood our language. During one part of our