in her; she filled slowly and then all of a sudden disappeared.
That was the saddest day of the whole month. We gave her three
cheers, and my next yacht at Kiel will be named _Ayesha_, that is
sure.

"To the captain of the _Choising_ I had said, when I hailed him,
'I do not know what will happen to the ship. The war situation
may make it necessary for me to strand it.' He did not want to
undertake the responsibility. I proposed that we work together,
and I would take the responsibility. Then we traveled together
for three weeks, from Padang to Hodeida. The _Choising_ was some
ninety meters long, and had a speed of nine miles, though sometimes
only four. If she had not accidentally arrived I had intended to
cruise along the west coast of Sumatra to the region of the northern
monsoon. I came about six degrees north, then over toward Aden
to the Arabian coast. In the Red Sea the northeastern monsoon,
which here blows southeast, could bring us to Djidda. I had heard
in Padang that Turkey was still allied with Germany, so we would
be able to get safely through Arabia to Germany.

"I next waited for information through ships, but the _Choising_
did not know anything definite, either. By way of the _Luchs_, the
_Koenigsberg_ and _Kormoran_ the reports were uncertain. Besides,
according to newspapers at Aden, the Arabs were said to have fought
with the English; therein there seemed to be offered an opportunity
near at hand to damage the enemy. I therefore sailed with the _Choising_
in the direction of Aden. Lieutenant Cordts of the _Choising_ had
heard that the Arabian railway already went almost to Hodeida,
near the Perin Strait. The ship's surgeon there, Docounlang, found
confirmation of this in Meyer's Traveling Handbook. This railway
could not have been taken over by the Englishmen, who always dreamt
of it. By doing this they would have further and completely wrought
up the Mohammedans by making more difficult the journey to Mecca.
Best of all, we thought, 'We'll simply step into the express train
and whizz nicely away to the North Sea.' Certainly there would be
safe journeying homeward through Arabia. To be sure, we had maps
of the Red Sea; but it was the shortest way to the foe whether in
Aden or in Germany.

"On the 7th of January, 1915, between nine and ten o'clock in the
evening, we sneaked through the Strait of Perin. It lay swarming
full of Englishmen. We steered along the African coast, close past an
English ca