It was to this desolate spot in the Indian Ocean that Captain Von Muller brought his ship, in the early days of November; with him was one of his captures, the _Buresk_, which was full of coal. The object of this visit of the _Emden_ was the destruction of the important wireless station that is established on the islands, and on the morning of November 9th, the officials were unpleasantly surprised by the landing of an armed boat's crew from a cruiser, which had come to an anchor, and which they first imagined to be H.M.S. _Minotaur_. They were quickly undeceived by the German officer in charge of the party, who informed them that their operations from the wireless station had greatly hampered the movements of the cruiser. One detachment of the Germans then rounded up all the officials and their servants, placing them under a strict guard, while a second party prepared to blow up the wireless installation and to smash the instrument rooms of the cable office. This they did most thoroughly, but the officials seem to have kept their heads in the most praiseworthy manner, as, just as soon as they discovered that the enemy was upon them, they sent out distress signals by wireless, and warned adjacent stations by cable that they were about to be smashed up. The landing party now blew up the wireless mast and the store in which spare cable and cable gear was kept; a third explosion wrecked the wireless hut, and completed the destruction of the installation. The dynamo rooms and workshops were destroyed with flogging hammers and axes, everything breakable, including clocks, being smashed to atoms. Their next proceeding was to cut the shore ends of the submarine cables, and this was done in full view of the prisoners. There are three cables from the Cocos--to Perth, to Batavia, and to Rodriguez--and the pleasure of the prisoners can be imagined when they saw the Germans spend much hard labour in destroying a dummy cable. Eventually the Perth cable and the dummy were cut, the others being left, presumably because the Germans did not know that they existed. The party from the _Emden_ had landed at 7.30 a.m., and by 9.20 their mission of destruction was accomplished. At this time a signal was blown on the siren from the ship; the officer in command collected his men, marched them down to the beach, and re-embarked. The telegraphists report that they were fairly and courteously treated. On arrival the _Emden_ was still using her now famous fourth funnel, a dummy, and this it was that caused the telegraphists to mistake her in the first instance for the _Minotaur_, which is a four-funnelled armoured cruiser. As she steamed away in the bright light of the tropic morning for what was so shortly to prove her last cruise, the _Emden_ hauled down, and stowed away, her dummy. The action that ensued between the _Sydney_ and the _Emden_ is here given in the official despatch of Captain Glossop, dated from Colombo on November 15th: