There returned to London from Egypt yesterday Mrs. Rosita Forbes, who recently travelled through the Libyan Desert. where a white woman had never been before, writes a special correspondent of the London "Times." A little over two months ago she was in Kufra, the headquarters of the Senussi, in the heart of the desert, which had only once been seen by a European, and that was over 40 years ago. Rohlfs had penetrated as far as Kufra, but Mrs. Forbes made a far more comprehensive survey of the country.
She started from Benghazi, the Mediterranean end of the ancient caravan route fom the Central Sudan across the Libyan Desert. She was given a safe conduct from the head of the Senussi himself, but this availed her very little. and she was surrounded by spies. Before they got to the sacred city of Taj they were imprisoned, but they managed to obtain their release after a good deal of anxiety, and at last reached it. They were then 530 miles from their starting point. Just beyond Taj are the oases of Kufra—the goal she had set out seek.
Stepyine tHE SENvssi.
Mrs. Forbes explained that her first day in London had been a busy one. "Even the congratulations," she said, "are now proving to be rather exhausting.'" She told how she came to undertake her perilous expedition. "I went through the country of the Senussi,"* she said, "because I wanted to study the Senussi at first hand. I wanted to see how far they could be counted as a military force, and, if possible, to find out why recently Egypt was fortified against them at so great an expense. I was con-vineed that both politically and strategically the country was very important indeed, and I wanted to find out for myself whether my ideas were correct. Whatever else I may have done, I think I have established in my own mind the political and strategic importance of the country of the Senussi.
"Kufra, which was my goal, is in the very midst of a series of important caravan routes, and if only the country could be generally opened up I think it would be of great importance for almost the whole of Africa. This importance was emphasized just before I came home.
After my return from my first expedition I made a second journey through a very small part of the same country, in extraordin narily comfortable circumstances. T travelled with a party of the Frontier District. Administration, which included General Hunter, to study the possibility of finding a direct route to Behig. We only travelled " comparatively short distance, although we were away for three weeks, but the party obtained some extremely useful information. Directly that trip de Juve was_ended I started to come back to London."
Mrs. Forbes was very emphatic about the fanaticism of the Zawais, who form the greater part of the native inhabitants of the district, They hate not only white men, but strangers of any kind, and Mrs. Forbes went on to describe some of the polite attentions of these warriors that had just failed in their object. The description of _her dangers was vivid, but with a London drawing-room as a background they seemed fantastic in the extreme. 7
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.