John Cornwall was forced to go fifty miles south of Tripoli to Azizia in the desert, where he found the thermometer 130 in the shade. At another time when he went to Zavia, he found six had recently died of the bubonic plague. In this land of heat, of blindness, of leprosy, of flies, of fleas and sandstorms, where the sun goes down red as the wounds of the slain, he was required as regional director of a district seven hundred by sixty miles to visit some thirty case del soldato, (houses of the soldier) in any manner the gods of opportunity presented. It was necessary to get something that beat the coast line vessels, which with oriental slowness and uncertainty of schedule visited the coast hamlets. A mule would not answer; a truck was furnished by the army but almost impossible; a camel was too hard on the backbone; besides at certain seasons they are vicious as a Hun and unless muzzled will snatch your arm in their strong jaws and snap it as a clap pipe stem. In this land of rugs, where is the magic carpet? Why an army Caproni--and the Italian army, until the Fiume question arose, refused nothing to an American. So John went to the Governo della Tripolitania Stato Maggiore and was given a general permit to make his trips from Tripoli to Homs and Zuara in the Caproni mail plane. The mail to Homs is carried on Wednesday and that to Zuara on Saturday. The planes are more than twenty meters from tip to tip and can ascend to six thousand meters; they are 18 cylinder, 450 horsepower with three complete engines, either of which is sufficient to operate a machine in case of accident. Then, the cost of building such a machine was approximately $16,000.00. They carry two thousand pounds of mail matter or explosives or ten men. The seat John occupied was in the very bow. When occupying this seat the pressure of the wind from the speed of flying is quite a strain on the neck, chest and back. Your head will be twisted as though wrenched by strong invisible hands, your back grows tender from pressure on the back rail and must be rested by leaning forward with your head adjusted at a certain angle with the wind. The distance from the aviation field near Tripoli to Homs is 110 kilometers and is usually made in fifty minutes. It takes seven hours by steamer. The steamer follows no schedule and may return in a few days or sail on to Genoa or Syracuse or Bengasi. The plane route in general follows the shore line. The blue Mediterranean from two thousand meters above is not blue but black. You can see to quite a depth and where the bottom is distinct the white sand looks blue and not the water. The colors do not blend--the inky black deep water, the blue shallows, the brown desert, with rare patches of white rectangular houses and the green oases of corn, alfalfa and palm trees. The palms, almost the only trees, look like inverted green feather dusters.