squadron of airplanes to the place where the tragedy had occurred.

About 12 o'clock that night there was a telephone call from the hospital. When I answered it I could not understand, or, at least, could not believe what the operator was telling me, and so handed the receiver over to the commanding officer, who slowly repeated the words: "Elliot passed away at 11:45."

The news was a terrible shock to me, for I had no idea that he would succumb to the wounds.

THE ARAB ASSASSIN IS CAPTURED

I waited until 4 a. m., and then, as dawn came, we took off, and by retracing my route of the previous day I came to the spot where I felt sure the gun had been fired.

One of the officers, who was in another machine, on a signal from the commanding officer, landed. He ascertained from a local encampment what tribes had been there the previous day. That started the investigation which resulted in

the ultimate capture of the culprit, who later confessed, his only excuse being that he wouldn't have committed the crime if he had had any idea that he was going to be found out.

Some of these tribes have been in the habit of raiding the villages in that part of the world for centuries, but recently they have had their activities curtailed by the Royal Air Force. Thus many have no love for airplanes, and this, I suppose, was the animus back of the action.

After this terrible tragedy, which meant the loss of one of the world's finest aircraft-maintenance engineers, I did not want to continue the flight, but cables received from England, especially those from Sir Samuel Hoare, Sir Charles Wakefield, and from my wife, all expressing sympathy, urged me to proceed. I decided that I would complete the job.

The Air Force sent me a substitute mechanic, Sergeant Ward, of the Royal Air Force, who was serving with his squadron near Basra. And so, a fortnight later, we continued the journey.

Owing to the lack of sunshine beyond Iraq, we found it difficult to get any aërial pictures on the Australian flight, and it was not until we arrived in Java that we met with regular sunshine.

I shall always have a vivid memory of our arrival in Melbourne, where more than 150,000 people had gathered to meet us. It was with difficulty that we could find space enough to get down on the airdrome, for we had changed over from a seaplane to wheels on arrival at Darwin, in northern Australia.

If it had not been for the police and the Australian Air Force I shudder to think of what might have been our fate had the enthusiastic crowd got hold of us.

TORRENTIAL RAINS IMPEDE RETURN TO

LONDON

The homeward journey, when our craft was once more converted back to a sea

plane, was beset with difficulties, especially when we were caught in the monsoon storms in the region of Victoria Point. Here the rain fell five inches a day, and at times it was impossible to see more than 20 yards ahead. Whereas the rainfall in England averages about 30 inches over the twelve months, the annual rainfall along the Burma coast, where it all comes within a period of about five months, is anything up to 300 inches!

At last we got back to London, and ended our 28,000-mile flight of survey by landing on the Thames opposite the Houses of Parliament.*

I look forward to the day when it will be possible for all mankind to enjoy the delights of flying such as have been my privilege during the past seven years.

*See, also, "From London to Australia by Aëroplane," by Sir Ross Smith, in the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE for March, 1921.

T

HE rock-hewn gorge and magnificent falls of the Potomac River are the most striking scenic features in the vicinity of the National Capital. The broad, calm stream that flows by Potomac Park, separating Washington and Virginia, narrows suddenly above the city. Its shores change from bottom lands and gently rolling hills to take on the sterner aspect of palisades, cut at frequent intervals by deep gullies, through some of which small streams enter the river in tumultuous cascades.

On the Virginia side, where the cliffs rise almost sheer from the water's edge, these ravines are so steep and so numerous that a journey along the bluffs entails more travel vertically than in a horizontal direction.

Just above the ruins of the old Aqueduct Bridge, which formerly carried a canal across the river, the trio of jagged rocks known as The Three Sisters recall a romantic legend of the Red Men who once roamed these rugged shores.

According to the tradition, these rocks mark the place where the three daughters of an Analostan chief were caught in a whirlpool and dragged to their watery grave. They were paddling across the river, so the story goes, to a secret tryst with their Powhatan lovers on the Virginia shore; but the river demons intervened and, after accomplishing the destruction of the sisters, caused the three gloomy rocks to rise from the spot where their bodies sank beneath the waves.

The Virginia and Maryland shores converge rapidly as one journeys up the river, until a few miles above Washington they are separated by less than 100 feet of water, now swift and turbulent.

Above Little Falls, which is a series of rapids, the river widens again. Numerous islands spangle the Maryland shore, while Virginia's cliffs become wilder and more rugged. The waters pursue a more leisurely course here, but it is only a temporary calm before the storm, and 15 miles above the Capital they gather for a majestic plunge over a wall of granite which all the Potomac's ages of work has been unable to wear down.

These falls offer a scene of impressive grandeur. Heaps of rocks are scattered about enormous granite bowlders and jagged reefs of gneiss-as if some Titan of long ago had vented his wrath by upheaving the crust of the earth itself. The wildness of the place, as the waters churn and boil in their never-ending warfare with the rocks, is comparable only to some of the larger mountain canyons of the West, and is hard to conceive as being within a few miles of the Capital City.

Normally the river here tumbles through a rather narrow channel in its race for the Chesapeake, but when spring melts the mountain snows and deluged valleys pour their overflowing streams into its upper reaches, the falls become a swirling flood that rages from shore to shore with a roar that may be heard for miles.

The old Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, which paralleled the Potomac Potomac from Georgetown up to and on beyond the falls, was begun about the same time as the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, and there was once a keen rivalry between them for the freight traffic between Washington and Cumberland. But the "iron horse" outdistanced the faithful, plodding mules of the towpath, and the canal is no longer in operation.

However, transportation's loss has been the gain of thousands who know and love the hike along the towpath, with its great trees and thickets fringing the still waters of the canal, while here and there a mossencrusted rock, bolder than the rest, juts out like some miniature Lorelei.

Birds frequent the vicinity in countless thousands. Wrens, sparrows, warblers, thrushes, and myriad other varieties haunt the thickets. Kingfishers seek their prey along the water's edge. Mocking birds are permanent residents of the woods, and the cheery whistle of the lordly cardinal may be heard at almost any time of year. Indeed, at certain seasons this magnificently caparisoned songster is encountered in flocks.

Where Cabin John Creek comes down to the river, man has carried a road across the precipitous valley on one of the world's largest single spans of masonry.