"Great was our joy now. I had an my men come on deck and line up for review. The fellows hadn't a rag on. Thus, in nature's garb, we gave three cheers for the German flag on the _Choising_. The men of the _Choising_ told us afterward 'We couldn't make out what that meant, those stark-naked fellows all cheering.' The sea was too high, and we had to wait two days before we could board the _Choising_ on December 16, 1914. We took very little with us; the schooner was taken in tow. In the afternoon we sank the _Ayesha_ and were all very sad. The good old _Ayesha_ had served us faithfully for six weeks. The log showed that we had made 1,709 sea miles under sail since leaving Keeling. She wasn't at all rotten and unseaworthy, as they had told me, but nice and white and dry inside. I had grown fond of the boat, on which I could practice my old sailing maneuvers. The only trouble was that the sails would go to pieces every now and then, because they were so old.
"But anyway, she went down quite properly. We had bored a hole 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 _Königsberg_ 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.