FROM LONDON TO AUSTRALIA BY AEROPLANE 



Photograph by Sir Ross Smith 



DELHI, THE FUTURE CAPITAL CITY OF INDIA, AS SEEN FROM THE VIMY (SEE P. 297) 



The Ross Smith party reached Delhi thirteen days after leaving London, having flown 

 5,870 miles. The journey of 2,100 miles from Basra had been accomplished in 25 hours and 

 ten minutes riving time. 



links north with south — a straight cut of 

 deep-blue water, running to the horizon 

 transversely to our course — and ahead 

 the gray desert sands, only limited by the 

 blue sky. 



Below, a P. and 'O. steamer, heading 

 south, passes down the Suez Canal. Per- 

 haps she is bound for Australia ; she will 

 call in at Adelaide, my home and desti- 

 nation ! With a smile, I contrasted the 

 old and the new methods of transporta- 

 tion, and a throb of exultation thrilled 

 us all. Still, we wondered — unspoken 

 the thoughts — who would reach Austra- 

 lia first. 



Kantara now lay below us, that vast 

 series of store-dumps — a mushroom city 

 beneath canvas — which had sprung into 

 being since the British occupation of 

 Palestine, and from which practically all 

 commissariat and munition supplies were 

 drawn. As we passed over Kantara, feel- 

 ings of confidence, mingled with no small 

 satisfaction, filled me. We were now 



entering upon country I knew as well as 

 my own homeland, for I had spent six 

 months traversing it with the Australian 

 Light Horse before I started flying: fur- 

 thermore, I had been over the entire air 

 route which now lay before us, as far as 

 Java. 



A BRIGHT PROSPECT 



The section from Hounslow to Cairo 

 I had always regarded with some trepi- 

 dation, on account of the winter storms 

 and bad weather. Xow we could look 

 forward to improving atmospheric con- 

 ditions and good aerodromes as far as 

 Calcutta at least. This enabled us to 

 view more rosily the ultimate issue. 



Kantara soon lay beyond the rolling 

 eternity of sand which all who served 

 through the rigors and privations of the 

 desert campaign call "Hell." It was 

 somewhere in these regions that the Chil- 

 dren of Israel wandered for forty years. 

 Fort\' minutes in the Vimy was quite 



